Progressive organisations saw the Seattle debacle and the World Trade Organisation’s failure to launch a new round of trade liberalisation as a great victory, even a turning point in the sometimes seemingly hopeless struggle against the might of the multi-nationals.  Meanwhile, papers like the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and The Economist assured us that poor countries were the real losers.  Whatever the truth, popular interest has rarely focused so sharply on what might in other times have been seen as rather dull negotiations about trade.  One small country’s ambassador to the US reported receiving letters on one disputed commodity – bananas – from over a third of his country’s population.  Below, Nora Connor of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs looks at the position of Latin American countries after Seattle.

Trade delegates from Latin American countries headed into November’s WTO ministerial meetings in Seattle knowing they had a lot at stake. Most of them left disappointed with the demise of the confab, but for varying reasons. The economies of the region range from giants like Brazil and the Mercosur trade bloc to the tiny island states of the Caribbean. The Mercosur

countries have the leverage to negotiate favourably for themselves within the WTO framework, as well as the infrastructure to benefit from increased liberalisation in sectors like agriculture. For these countries the failure to move forward was a serious loss, effectively delaying improvements in access for their stronger sectors to huge markets such as that of the U.S.

Some smaller hemispheric nations have nearly mirror-image priorities. Small Caribbean banana-producing nations are panicked at the prospect of  elimination of "unfair" EU import quotas, in contrast to the larger nations, which came into the Seattle meetings prepared to line up with the U.S. against EU import practices and subsidies. Elimination of the quotas would decimate the entire economies of many of these nations, most of whom are members of the Caribbean economic community (CARICOM). Kingsley Layne, St. Vincent’s Ambassador to the U.S., reported that receiving over 40,000 letters of concern over the potential implications of such a decision by the WTO--out of a population of 112,000. Delegates from Central American and Caribbean countries were also especially critical of the WTO’s exclusive "green room" negotiations, which shut them out of the decision-making process.

DEBT
One feature common to Latin American countries large and small is external debt, which in the region as a whole has more than doubled since 1980, from US$257 billion to US$736 billion. Excessive debt and a general decline in price of the natural commodity exports that form the basis of many regional economies, have combined to put Latin America in the position of ever-greater dependency on foreign investment, even as individual governments steadily lose the ability to control and direct capital inflows.

Devotees of the economic liberalisation begun in Latin America in the late ‘70s and ‘80s use macroeconomic indicators to make the case for the neo-liberal approach. Trade, growth and investment in the region are all up, while the hyperinflation common a decade ago is gone. Yet great poverty and skewed income distribution persist--more than 30 percent of the region’s population lives in poverty, according to the UN, a number that has remained unchanged since 1980. Growth has been insufficient to affect poverty levels (less than 3 percent annually since 1990), while "unskilled" workers saw their wages decline in absolute terms between 20 and 30 percent during that period. Those numbers look even worse when coupled with a finding from the ILO--that 85 percent of new jobs in the region are in "informal" sectors--without benefits, security or the support of unions.

“INTERPRETATIVE LIBERTIES”
Labour issues in Latin America have met with interpretative liberties similar to those applied to macroeconomic statistics. Officials from developing countries are fond of decrying the inclusion of labour protections in trade agreements (and mass media in the richest nations are fond of quoting them), as protectionist ploys to lessen the competitive advantage of products from those countries and to deny them access to markets. Indeed there is ample reason to believe that labour standards could be invoked for just such purposes. Negative responses to the idea of externally-imposed labour standards are hardly surprising from governments for which comparatively greater exploitation of workers is the only "competitive advantage," even as they struggle to make debt payments and to  adhere, at the expense of domestic social spending, to the austere "structural adjustment" programs tied to foreign aid. In Latin America it has taken voices from outside officially delegated channels to come forth on behalf of labour rights. The Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) has for years been calling for alternative approaches to economic integration in the Americas. A coalition of civil society organisations, the HSA has made concrete and workable proposals in a number of policy papers, reports and letters to governmental institutions.

They point out that  "core" labour standards can be implemented at any stage of development--including the right to organise and collective bargaining, the right to safe working conditions, and bans on child labour. The HSA is also calling for debt relief and increased controls on investment, especially speculative investment, as critical to the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.

POLITICS AND POVERTY
If the interpretation of economic indicators in Latin America has been selective, a sensitive assessment of political issues and their relation to trade has been nearly absent. The right of national governments to promote domestic development and social welfare is often broached in critiques of  global trade liberalisation, and rightly so. Yet accountability for actions past and present on the part of individual governments is often conveniently forgotten--in the context of debts, for example, which in many cases were accrued under regimes famed for their corruption and ineptitude. The ability of those in power to maximise the benefits of globalisation for their citizens is crucial. Are multinational corporations likely to move their operations in protest of a government’s failure to establish and respect workers’ right to collective bargaining? Not likely.

Despite widespread, if tentative, inroads in democracy and faithful pursuit of economic reforms, citizens of Latin America are finding their situations have not improved. Growing evidence indicates that the forces of the free market have not been sufficient to lift the vast majorities out of poverty.

This consensus was reflected over the past year in politics, with leftist or centre-left candidates achieving victories in national elections in Uruguay, Chile and elsewhere, advocating a stronger interventionist role for government in national affairs and more attention to social problems.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is also a case in point--the popular President has embarked on a take-no-prisoners campaign to do away with corruption and to protect Venezuela from unwelcome developments in the international economy, introducing, for example, legislation to prohibit the privatisation of Venezuela’s oil industry.

Other Latin American nations have more pressing problems than government mishandling of economic gains. The decline over the last two decades of repressive or military regimes is a positive sign. Yet the region remains politically volatile, although commentators and media worldwide seem to concur that the fledgling democracies are functional, popular, consolidated and irreversible. More than ever, now that the illusion of  political stability has been internationally validated, Latin American countries, as "emerging markets," are pressed to maintain investment-friendly financial conditions at any cost. But in many countries, the realities of violence and poverty have not disappeared with the advent of nominally democratic regimes. <para>The examples are numerous: Peru’s experience under strongman Alberto Fujimori, expected to manipulate the Peruvian constitution a second time to permit himself a third term in office; Colombia’s worsening civil strife; tenuous governmental transition following a lengthy civil war in Guatemala; increasing political upheaval and the dissolution of government in Haiti, Ecuador and elsewhere. In some cases, national and local governments cannot guarantee the most basic protections and services to their citizens. Even in the more politically stable nations, legacies of paternalism and corporatism remain, and submerge popular concerns. This ought to prompt serious review of the wisdom of forcing economic liberalisation on first-world terms down the throats of Latin American nations.

TIME TO CHANGE THE FOCUS…
It is too early to tell whether the "battle in Seattle" will open the way for a more inclusive approach to global economic integration. The charge from the Peruvian daily La Republica, that the Seattle meetings "revealed the limits of neoliberalism and the hypocrisy of a supposedly fair discussion [which] actually serves to maintain hegemonies," expresses the dissatisfaction with the WTO felt by trade ministers and labour activists alike. A relevant activist agenda will include a push for commitments to ensuring more equitable distribution of wealth within and between nations and to aiding real political stability. Only continuing participation can make these concepts into priorities, acknowledged as essential to the sustainable growth of trade and investment.  As hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill puts it, it’s time to change the focus from the richest to the brokest.

Nora Connor works at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Washington D.C. This article first appeared in Spectre No.9, Spring 2000.