PROTESTS
VS. MINING LIBERALIZATION IN WTO 6TH MINISTERIAL
Hong Kong – About 100 indigenous peoples and environmental activists
representing people's movements from different countries gathered here
Thursday in a caucus on mining and the World Trade Organization to take
stock of and further advance the international resistance to continuing
plunder of natural resources by mining transnational corporations.
In their unity statement, participants from Bangladesh, China, India,
Indonesia, Ghana, Kenya, the Philippines, and Tanzania declared that international
opposition to corporate mining intensified across the globe as liberalization
policies swept through more than 120 mineralized countries for the past
decades.
“Globalization distorted and dismantled laws and norms, hence,
the sovereignty and right to self-determination of peoples across the
world, to pave the way for the plunder of and profit-making from what
is left of the world’s mineral resources,” said Clemente Bautista
of Philippine’s Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment
and convenor of the caucus.
Windel Bolinget, Secretary General of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance
from the Philippines also condemned the collusion of governments and mining
transnational corporations in violating the economic, social and cultural
rights of indigenous peoples and aboriginals across the world.
“Large-scale mining has caused massive displacement of indigenous
peoples and peasants , displacement of peoples, disruption of livelihoods,
destruction of ecosystems, militarization, political killings, violations
of workers’ rights, among others in the name of profit,” Bolinget
lamented.
Adi Widyanto of JATAM-Indonesia which co-sponsored the caucus also expressed
opposition to the exploitation of natural resources by transnational mining
corporations whose much avowed corporate responsibility does not translate
to adequate benefits to local communities.
“We would not allow the WTO to further legitimize and perpetuate
the plunder of patrimonies and oppression of mining affected communities,”
Widyanto adds.
Participants of the caucus denounced the 6th WTO Ministerial Meeting
as it seeks to further liberalize local industries and gain direct control
of the world's mineral resources through Non-Agricultural Market Access
and General Agreement on Trade in Services. As of press time, developed
countries are aggressively pushing for the favorable conclusion of the
negotiations on GATS.
Roger Moody of Mines and Communities said that it is apt and just for
the international movement against the liberalization of mining to take
the struggle to the streets of Hong Kong to demand that NAMA and GATS
be junked together with the WTO itself.
Participants of the caucus staged a protest Friday afternoon in front
of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, venue of the WTO Ministerial
Conference.
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Reference: Clemente Bautista/Voltz Tupaz, 98094798, kalikasan.pne@gmail.com,
Roger Moody infl@mineandcommunities.org |