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Malabe Statement of Concern
We, the representatives of civil society organizations from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Philippines, and Sri Lanka assembled at Malabe, Sri Lanka, during May 21-23, 2001 to discuss the implications of various instruments/agreements under the realm of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, 1994) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at the Workshop, "Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in the context of WTO Negotiations". The Workshop was organized by two German organizations, viz. FAKT Consult for Management, Training, and Technologies and Bread for the World and Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR), Sri Lanka.
The discussion at the Workshop took place in the context of the current exploitative socioeconomic and political model that has been a product of neo-liberal and neo-colonial policies initiated at the national and international level under the guidance of the World Bank, (WB) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The discussions that took place clearly highlighted that:
1. WTO has put in place a regime that has reinforced the exploitative economic, social, and political structures and decision-making systems at the national and international level that emerged from structural adjustment programmes and other policy programmes implemented by the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
2. Various instruments under GATT (1994)/WTO such as, Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), Agreement on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), etc. have given rise to processes at the national and international level that have resulted in:
a. Agriculture being used to further corporate interests rather than adopt it as 'a way of life' or source of food security;
b. Greater marginalisation of the small/marginal farmers and landless labour, women, children and other marginalized sections in various societies;
c. Taking away the rights of people, including women, children and indigenous communities over natural resources thereby accentuating their poverty;
d. Strengthening transnational corporations (TNCs) with respect to not only access over natural and public resources and technology but also over determining the type of policy and decision-making structures at the national and international level;
e. Providing greater legitimacy to international institutions and rich countries to decide the fate of millions of citizens;
f. Facilitating a nexus between rich countries, IMF, WB and TNCs to reduce the sovereignty of poor and developing countries over policy formulation and management of their economic, political and social structures in collaboration with elites and governments of various countries;
g. Greater commodification of knowledge resulting in commercialization of the same; and
h. Proliferation of processes aiding suppression and violence that have contributed to social conflicts and loss of peace.
Further, it was also noted that the success of the people in not allowing the successful completion of the WTO Ministerial Meeting at Seattle, USA, during December 1999 and the Annual Meeting of the ADB at Honolulu, USA, during May 2001 showed that citizens of the world are increasingly marshalling their forces against the agents of globalization. More so, the successes associated with peoples' struggles in various parts of the world in challenging and defeating such outcomes discussed above are pointers towards the fact that the current system based on neoliberal principles can be rolled back.
It is with this vision that the participants attending this meeting have come forward with plans at the national and regional levels to strengthen existing/emerging alternatives and pledge their support to efforts that promote sustainable agriculture, ecology, gender sensitive and socially just economic, social and political world order.