La Via Campesina responds to the WTO’s purported plans to set up a ‘Civil Society Council’
by La Via Campesina
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La Via Campesina responds to the WTO’s purported plans to set up a
‘Civil Society Council’
29 May 2023 Key Documents (WTO)
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Recently, La Via Campesina received a request to participate in a civil
society “council” to the WTO executive. After careful consideration, we
decided to decline this invitation. *Through this open letter*, we wish
to explain why we believe it is impossible to reform the WTO in a way
that is favourable to peasants and, more generally, to the interests of
the people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since 1995, the WTO has aimed to facilitate and increase the share of
international trade in world production and consumption. Compared to the
GATT, one of the main changes brought about by the creation of the WTO
was to integrate agriculture into this logic of generalized free trade.
As early as 1993, La Via Campesina, as a world peasant movement, was
created against this logic of globalization and commodification of
agriculture and food. The principles of free-market ideology and the
legal frameworks that have governed international trade over the past
three decades have deep roots in the history of colonialism. It was
clear to the vast majority of peasant organizations around the world
that giving priority to international trade over agricultural production
for feeding local populations would only accentuate the marginalization
of peasant populations, worsen hunger in the world and increase the
power of transnational companies.
The Agreement on Agriculture, which came into force in 1995 and was to
be applied for a limited period of time, is so unfair that, since then,
no agreement has ever been reached between the WTO member states on the
agricultural issue. As the title of the late Jacques Berthelot’s book
expresses it, “agriculture is the Achilles heel of globalization”, and
therefore the eternal Achilles heel of the WTO.
*This year, in 2023, we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the tragic
death of our brother, friend and comrade Lee Kyung Hae from South Korea*
who gave his life in Cancun in 2003 to denounce the WTO. In his memory,
we call to finally end the WTO and build a new framework for fair
international trade based on food sovereignty.
An unfair agreement on agriculture
The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) is fundamentally unfair. It is the
direct result of the 1992 Blair House agreement between the United
States and the European Union, which sets out a common strategy for
these two actors to the detriment of the other states of the world, and
in particular against the interests of the countries of the Global South.
Export subsidies are certainly limited in principle (although in reality
they continue via various mechanisms), but replaced by direct support
from the US and the EU to farmers. However, this direct aid, whose very
purpose is to maintain the competitiveness of US and European production
on international markets, is classified in the “green box” of so-called
“non-distorting” support. Most countries in the South do not have the
budgetary capacity to distribute such levels of public aid to farmers:
the green box is reserved for rich countries that control international
monetary production. On the contrary, market regulation tools and in
particular agricultural price support measures (tariffs, supply
management mechanisms, MSP minimum support prices, public stockholding,
etc.), which are more accessible to poor countries, are classified in
the amber box and are therefore subject to significant reductions. The
AoA is an agreement tailored to the United States and the EU, against
the countries of the South. African, Asian and Latin American countries
have very good reasons to denounce this unfair agreement.
From the point of view of peasants in the South and the North, this
agreement has had disastrous consequences, as we predicted in 1993. All
over the world, the power of transnational companies has increased and
they have succeeded in increasing their margins to the detriment of the
peasants, who have received only a minimal share of the value of their
production. In the South, these companies have also grabbed more and
more land, water sources and seeds, to the detriment of peasant
communities and often in a violent way, based on the WTO agreements, but
also on the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the IMF and the
World Bank. In the North, farmers on small and medium-sized farms have
received little or no direct aid (80% of farms in the EU are smaller
than 10 hectares), but they have suffered from the fall and volatility
of agricultural prices following the dismantling of market regulation
tools (the end of milk quotas for example). They were put in competition
with large farms that received tens of thousands of dollars or euros in
public subsidies.
More generally, the AoA has been a disaster for people and the
environment. Food supply chains have become globalised: when major
shocks occur on international markets and prices soar with financial
speculation, indebted countries that have become dependent on imports to
feed their populations are extremely vulnerable, as we saw at the time
of the 2008 crisis, but also currently. Thus, far from the declarations
of the 1996 food summit which promised to end hunger through
international trade, the opposite is happening. Hunger is increasing,
fuelled by poverty and social inequality. Rural populations are driven
out of their territories by land grabbing and lack of agricultural
income and migrate to cities or neighbouring countries. Agrarian
countries are becoming poorer. Huge industrial monocultures for export
are replacing the diverse mixed farming methods that used to produce
healthy food for local populations. Pesticides, synthetic fertilisers
and GMO seeds are proliferating and polluting the water, soil and air,
seriously affecting the health of rural populations.
This is the result of almost 30 years of AoA: green deserts, hunger and
a dying countryside.
*La Via Campesina’s historic struggles for food sovereignty*
On the contrary, since 1996 we have affirmed the need to build and
defend food sovereignty, i.e. the right of peoples to decide on their
agricultural and food policies, without dumping on other peoples.
Food sovereignty includes the right of peoples, and therefore of States,
to distribute land and water use rights not according to a so-called
“law of the market”, but according to the general interest. It includes
the right of states to put in place public policies to regulate the
market so as to guarantee agricultural production in line with the needs
of the population and at stable prices. It considers the importance of
production methods, and in particular agroecology, to protect the health
of territories and populations. It gives priority to local production
and consumption of food, not to exports of agricultural goods. It puts
people, especially small-scale food producers, and in particular women
and youth, at the centre, rather than the interests of transnational
companies and financial actors.
For years, we have seen that the WTO continues to be a powerful
instrument for the destruction of people’s food sovereignty. The WTO is
used by rich, agro-exporting countries to denounce and criminalise
policies that aim to support peasant agriculture, regulate agricultural
markets and stabilise food prices for people. For example, the constant
denunciation via the WTO of public storage is a shame. In March 2022, we
were given access to WTO documents that contained threats to use the
dispute settlement body against Egypt, which expressed a pressing need
to increase its public stocks to ensure food for its population in the
face of the sudden rise in prices on international markets. Similarly,
the group of African countries, India, China, South Africa, the G33 and
the ACP group have been expressing the need to allow public storage to
support their local food production and fight hunger for many years, and
they are not being heard.
Food sovereignty is not compatible with the AoA, nor with the very
principles of the WTO. This is why we have always denounced the AoA and
said “Down Down WTO”.
*NO to a reform of the WTO, YES to multilateral negotiations outside
the WTO to create an International trade framework based on food
sovereignty*
You invite us to participate in a council to “reform the WTO”. But food
sovereignty can never be achieved by the WTO, whose very purpose, the
globalisation of international trade and the accentuation of “free
trade”, is contrary to food sovereignty. So we are obliged to refuse
this invitation. Based on information gathered from multiple sources, La
Via Campesina has come to understand that even within the WTO, there is
resistance to the Director General’s (DG) unilateral establishment of
such bodies, particularly from developing countries. It appears that
this initiative by the DG is driven by business groups who have evident
vested interests in a business advisory council. Consequently, it seems
that the creation of a CSO council is merely a superficial gesture. We
strongly reject it!
The last time you invited us to the negotiation table (and we refused)
was in 2005, following the failure of the negotiations in Hong Kong, in
the face of an existential crisis of your organisation that since then
has never been resolved. This crisis is now reaching a climax. You are
trying to save your organisation by launching yet another reform
process, but without ever calling into question the very philosophy of
the WTO and the reason for your failure. Agriculture remains your
“Achilles heel”.
We, the global peasant movement, do not want to negotiate with the WTO.
We want the Agreement on Agriculture repealed and we want the WTO to
give us a breath : we want the WTO out of agriculture.
The demise of the WTO is inevitable. Your organization has not only
demonstrated its futility, but more importantly, its detrimental impact.
Faced with the immense challenges facing humanity – world hunger, the
climate crisis, wars, inflation, social inequalities, the collapse of
biodiversity, pandemics, etc. – the responses you propose are making the
crises worse.
More and more states are realising that no solution will be found with
the institutions that have been the Trojan horses of Western
neo-liberalism, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank, for it is these
institutions that have led to the current disaster. However, these
states have not yet found the means to set up alternative institutions
to meet their needs. “The old world is dying, the new world is slow to
appear”
We fully understand the need for states not to be excluded from the
possibility of participating in international trade. The situation of
states that are subject to unilateral unjust sanctions excluding them
from international trade shows the importance of a fair framework for
agricultural trade in particular. La Via Campesina does not defend
autarky, but food sovereignty.
Thus, we call on states not to waste time in sterile negotiations at the
WTO around a hypothetical “reform” that has never led to anything for
more than 20 years. *We invite states, and in particular the countries
of the Global South, to sit around the table to negotiate a new
framework for fair and inclusive international trade based on food
sovereignty. *These negotiations could take place in any space that
respects genuine multilateralism where all states are truly equal and
where the voice of civil society organisations and in particular
small-scale food producers will be heard and taken into account, for
example at the FAO or UNCTAD.
We, La Via Campesina, commit ourselves to work for this new
international framework, just as we did for the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Rural Workers (UNDROP).
We place ourselves under the good auspices of our brother, friend and
comrade Lee Kyung Hae to carry out this necessary task.
*Globalize the Struggle, Globalize Hope !
Faced with Global Crises, We Build Food Sovereignty, to Ensure a Future
for Humanity !*
*La Via Campesina
29 May 2023*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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1 year, 7 months
Colombia: La Via Campesina’s International Solidarity Mission expresses hope, praises the political will to achieve peace.
by La Via Campesina
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Colombia: La Via Campesina’s International Solidarity Mission
expresses hope, praises the political will to achieve peace.
11 May 2023 Colombia Peace Process
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*Bogota, 11 May 2023* : An international delegation of La Via Campesina
(LVC), the international peasant movement accompanying the
implementation process of the Peace Agreement in Colombia expresses its
satisfaction and hope, and praises the political will of the current
Colombian government to implement the agreement.
Following a visit to the */Sumapaz Campesino Reserve Zone /*(ZRC), the
visiting delegates held a public forum and also met with Colombian
government officials and other members of civil society to take stock of
the implementation of the peace agreement. Although many of the accord’s
commitments have yet to be fulfilled, La Via Campesina’s solidarity
mission welcomed the Colombian government’s commitment to recognize
peasants as political subjects and to harmonize policies derived from
the peace accord with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).
The movement also*issued a public statement on May 9
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recognizing the importance of agrarian justice measures to ensure the
transition and expressing our full support for the creation of an
Agrarian Court in Colombia.
Nury Martinez, ICC LVC, FENSUAGRO, Colombia, who hosted the visiting
delegation, stated,
“Colombia is a diverse country. It needs a development plan that
recognizes this diversity. The congressional labor reforms are a step in
the right direction. The pension system for rural workers proposed in
one of these reforms is something we welcome and value. The recognition
of peasants as subjects with political rights, their protection as a
constitutional right and the harmonization of all institutions and
agencies at the regional level are central to this peace process. The
Executive Orders should also be modified to prevent companies from
taking advantage of legal loopholes to take more land from the people”.
Federico Pacheco, ICC, LVC and SOC SAT Spain, reiterated LVC’s
commitment to the process noting that: “Agrarian reform is central to
the struggles of La Via Campesina. As LVC, we are very optimistic about
the new government’s commitment to implement the peace agreement,
including comprehensive agrarian reform.”
Zainal Arifin Fuad, ICC LVC, Serikat Petani Indonesia, drew parallels
with land reform plans in his country. “In Indonesia, SPI is also
fighting for agrarian reform, through the creation of agricultural
villages and food sovereignty zones, to offer an alternative to
neoliberalism and achieve food sovereignty. We are working closely with
the Indonesian government to implement this reform and also to harmonize
the laws with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants. It is good
to see that the Colombian government is also taking these steps, and
they are going in the right direction.”
La Via Campesina’s delegation reaffirms its commitment to the
implementation of the Agreement and the construction of Peace in
Colombia, and will continue to develop its work as an international
accompaniment in order to contribute to the development of Agrarian
Reform in Colombia.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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1 year, 7 months
La Via Campesina Denounces Israeli Aggression in Gaza and Stands in Solidarity with Palestine
by La Via Campesina
*|MC:SUBJECT|* *|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*
La Via Campesina Denounces Israeli Aggression in Gaza and Stands in
Solidarity with Palestine
14 May 2023 International Solidarity
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*Solidarity statement*
The cessation of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip is an immediate
necessity. Israel’s actions against the vulnerable Palestinian
population should not go unaddressed. It is incumbent upon the global
community to enforce restraining measures and hold Israel accountable
for its transgressions against humanity. A multitude of farmers
currently face Israeli bombardment, with many lives tragically lost. An
extensive swath of agricultural lands and water resources are being
decimated, a strategy seemingly designed to induce starvation among the
Palestinians in Gaza.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*14/05/2023* | Bagnolet, France
In the early hours of Tuesday, May 9, 2023, Israeli forces launched a
severe assault on three residential complexes in the Gaza Strip. A
squadron of 40 warplanes was deployed in this assault on the densely
populated residences. The immediate consequence was the tragic loss of
13 Palestinian lives and numerous injuries, including 7 children and 3
women. With the initiation of this military operation in Gaza, the death
toll has exceeded 30, with 24 women and children among the casualties,
and many more left in shock and distress.
The assault was initiated while the residents were sleeping, and no
significant events preceded this devastating act. Entire families were
obliterated in their sleep, a distressing act that underscores the
severity of the atrocity committed against civilians. Israel justifies
the assault by identifying the target as three activists involved with
Islamic Jihad, disregarding the fact that these activists were residing
with their families in residential buildings. This act is yet another in
a series of transgressions committed by the Israeli forces against the
Palestinian people, who have been engaged in a struggle for their
liberty for the past 75 years.
This ongoing aggression, now in its fourth day, has also targeted
farming communities and agricultural lands in the border areas and has
persistently barred fishermen from venturing into the sea. From the
onset of the assault, the Israeli forces have continuously bombarded
thousands of acres of agricultural land, preventing farmers from
accessing their fields. This has inflicted significant losses on the
farming community, resulting in a critical shortage of food,
particularly vegetables, on which the entire Gaza Strip is dependent.
For the past four days, Israeli forces have relentlessly bombed
residential areas throughout the Gaza Strip, showing an alarming
disregard for the civilian population, primarily composed of women and
children. The Gaza Strip has been under a severe blockade for over 16
years, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians due to a
shortage of essential medicines and medical care.
We, at La Via Campesina, vehemently condemn these brutal acts and we
urge the free people of the world to actively support the Palestinian
people’s struggle for liberation in all possible ways. It is the duty of
the international community to eliminate double standards in dealing
with this occupation.
*We demand the end of the occupation and freedom for the resilient
Palestinian people.*
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1 year, 7 months
La Via Campesina Warns of Democratic Frailty in Ecuador
by La Via Campesina
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La Via Campesina Warns of Democratic Frailty in Ecuador
20 May 2023 Food Sovereignty
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*/Communiqué from La Vía Campesina denounces the dissolution of
democratic institutions in Ecuador, coupled with a recent decree on
terrorism and the military supporting the President./*
(Bagnolet, May 20, 2023) The peasant, indigenous, landless, women and
workers’ organizations that are part of the international movement La
Via Campesina around the world warn with great concern about the current
context in Ecuador, marked by a serious political crisis, accompanied by
a deep economic and social crisis, with high levels of violence by
criminal groups, the State and the sectors of power that continue
looting the people.
On Wednesday, May 17, the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso signed
executive decree
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741, which establishes the dissolution of the National Assembly. This in
the midst of the political trial opened against him for accusations of
embezzlement. The decree also calls for early general elections within
90 days.
As La Via Campesina we are concerned about the fact that this mechanism
known as “mutual death,” although included in the Constitution since
2008, received full support of the Armed Forces and the Police before
there had been any official pronouncement from the Constitutional Court.
On the other hand, we raise the alarm about a serious threat to
democracy, because although the mechanism of “mutual death” is a
constitutional tool, its implementation in a scenario of anti-democracy
can be dangerous.
As peasant organizations we demand that for as long as this process
lasts, president Lasso refrains from deepening Neoliberalism,
extractivism, the privatization of basic services, the handover of
natural goods — oil, mining, the radio-electrical spectrum — to
transnational corporations. We need decrees that address the urgent
demands of working-class urban and rural sectors instead of catering to
corporate groups. We strongly reject every type of consession and
privatization of public assets.
As a movement present worldwide, we call on our member organizations,
allies and multilateral institutions to remain alert to the events in
Ecuador. We must ensure transparent elections, stand in defense of
democracy in the country and the continent, denounce the imperialist and
interventionist practices of the US and demand all proceedings are
executing according to the law.
We call to:
* Respond immediately to the serious social crisis that Ecuador is
also facing, with high rates of hunger and malnutrition in children,
poverty, migrations, unemployment of almost half of the population,
lack of investment in health and education and an out of control
level of violence and insecurity due to criminal gangs.
* Pay special attention to the peasant sector, those who feed the
country, the montubio people, Afro-descendants and indigenous
people, as well as the artisanal fisher-folk who are indebted to the
banks, slaves in their territories, who also suffer assault,
kidnapping, extortion and assassinations, coupled with the complete
disregard of the State. All the while, the corporate, agribusiness
and banking sector, aligned with the Lasso administration and other
political sectors, enjoy shamefully high profit rates as the main
benefitiaries of the corruption that plagues Ecuador.
* Respect the political rights of the progressive members of the
National Assembly, acknowledge the militant and political trajectory
of comrade José Agualsaca and offer him our support, as historic
leader of the FEI (Ecuadorian Federation of Indians, member
organization of CLOC – La Via Campesina), and current assembly
member who already several months ago had offered his seat in
defense of the governance of the country.
* Endorse the democratic processes of indigenous, student and workers’
organizations, respecting the freedom of assembly and association to
launch local assemblies, in the understanding that democracy is at
its core the people, organized and fighting for their rights.
* Ensure a transparent electoral process that does not censor the
participation and candidacies of any sector; demand that the
National Electoral Council restructure the Provincial Electoral
Boards for a more democratic conformation and that intermediate,
provincial and national computing centers are audited.
* Coordinate a progressive and popular process of unity, engaging all
the sectors of the left, parties, organizations and movements in
Ecuador for the elections called for August 2023; a process able to
address the most affected sectors of society as indicated in the
2008 Constitution and its humanistic and anti-capitalist spirit; a
Constitution that also acknowledges the peasantry as a subject of
rights, a priority in public policy, and Food Sovereignty as a
strategic objective of the State for a true revolution in rural areas.
*We call to join the national collective work to rebuild a
multicultural, fair and sovereign Ecuador!*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Photographs National Strike Ecuador, June 2022. Edu León.*
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1 year, 7 months
Press release | From Mons to the World: La Via Campesina Celebrates 30 Years of globalizing peasant struggle and solidarity
by La Via Campesina
*|MC:SUBJECT|* *|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*
Commemoration in Mons
From Mons to the World: La Via Campesina Celebrates 30 Years of
globalizing peasant struggle and solidarity
*PRESS RELEASE* *14/05/2023* | Bagnolet, France
On May 15, La Via Campesina will celebrate its 30th anniversary of the
formal founding of global peasant movement. This celebration is a
reflection of three decades of commitment to the realization of social
justice, human dignity and food sovereignty through peasant agroecology,
popular feminism and peasant rights.
The history of La Via Campesina has an important stage in Mons, Belgium,
in May 1993, when different peasant and land workers’ organizations from
various continents met to concretize the strategies planned a year
earlier in Managua, Nicaragua, and coordinate common actions at the
international level. Thirty organizations established the movement we
now recognize today, and since then its principles and convictions have
been solidly grounded. The movement has grown to include 182 member
organizations and over 200 million rural workers, and is now the world’s
largest social movement with the slogan “globalize the struggle,
globalize hope.”
Over the years, La Via Campesina has played a pivotal role in supporting
peasant emancipatory struggles at all levels and in recognizing their
rights in the UN declaration on the rights of peasants and other people
working in rural areas. Today, La Via Campesina brings a voice of hope
to all societies in times of multidimensional crises. As we celebrate
the 30th anniversary of the founding of the movement, we are excited to
share that this November we are also organizing our eighth international
conference in Colombia. This event will be a moment to continue building
our proposals based on respect for the living, grassroots organization,
diversity and solidarity, which are serving to build fair and equitable
food systems, and from there, fair and equitable societies.
30 years of sharing struggles to sow hope
To celebrate 30 years of globalizing struggles, La Via Campesina, in
collaboration with the European Coordination Via Campesina and LVC’s
Belgian member organizations: Boerenforum, FUGEA, MAP, is organizing a
commemorative event on May 15, that will be divided into three sections.
The first part will feature people who were present and involved in the
founding, the second part will include former La Via Campesina general
coordinators, and the third part will have current ICC representatives
of La Via Campesina to look at the context of the movement today.
The entire event program will be a enriching experience in itself,
including a live music show, group readings of historical documents,
audiovisual presentations, and a peasant-style meal accompanied by music
and dance.
La Via Campesina invites everyone to join the commemorative event on May
15 through their social networks to continue sharing struggles and
sowing hope.
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“Globalize the struggle, globalize hope”.
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For more information, please contact us at press(a)viacampesina.org
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1 year, 7 months