A day before the official kick-off to the third ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation, 1,200-odd NGOs (non governmental organisations), making the trip to Seattle, will hold an official symposium. So even before a word is spoken in favour of trade liberalisation these NGOs, whose movement has been code-named "Mobilisation against globalisation", will have had their say.
These representatives of civil society come from over 87 countries and are likely to outnumber the official negotiators by 10
to 1. The fear that they will overshadow the official agenda looms large among the conference
organisers. After all, it was their sheer strength in numbers and ability to whip up public sentiment against the talks that forced organisers of the Seattle meet to have a special NGO day on November 29. There is even a separate hotel assigned for NGO activity.
It's clear, then, that the NGOs at Seattle are not staying on the edge of the negotiations. They are going to be the focus of as much media attention as the trade-ins and trade-offs that will take place behind closed doors. And many governments realising that they can't beat them have brought them to the negotiating table as well!
What will India's participation in this mega NGO jamboree be? So far, about half a dozen Indian NGOs are making the trip. Those Indian NGOs going to Seattle are Consumer Unity & Trust Society, Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security, National Working Group on Patent Laws, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, the World Rural Forum and Liberty Institute which will be part of the international coalition of NGOs called International Consumers for Civil Society.
Even more crucially, each one of them is going in their own capacity, not as part of the 30-strong official Indian delegation.
And that is what some of them are bitterly complaining about. CUTS, which is making the trip, and Gene Campaign, which is not, were both part of the National Advisory Committee on International Trade, which was set up early this year to help prepare India's standpoint for the third round of WTO.
Indian NGOs' concerns mostly revolve around Trips (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and issues relating to food security. They are also strongly opposed to the US and EU moves to link trade with labour and environment and the opening up of any new round of WTO negotiations. All these are issues that the Indian delegation will be negotiating on.
Other than commerce ministry officials and some bureaucrats, only representatives from industry as well as few research agencies were invited to be part of this think tank. But when it came to choosing who goes to Seattle, the NGOs were kept out.
Says Suman Sahai, convenor, Gene Campaign, "The advisory committee was set up after India's utter and complete failure in Singapore. And now after we have been included in this committee and have been regularly feeding into what India's position should be at Seattle, we are being left out of the official delegation."
Pradeep S Mehta, secretary general of CUTS points out that "There are six people from industry in the delegation but when we wrote to them to include us we were told that the delegation has to be kept within `reasonable size'." Mehta says they took up the issue with Ramakrishna Hedge, then commerce minister, who had assured them that both business interest and public interest NGOs would be invited to join the official delegation.
A letter from Bulbul Sen, director in the commerce ministry, read: "As you are aware, the government has engaged in intensive consultations with industry and civil society as part of the preparation for the Seattle Meeting and we are greatly appreciative of your interaction in this regard. However, after careful consideration of the matter it has not been found possible to accede to your request for inclusion in the official delegation for the Seattle Meeting, which of necessity has also to be kept within a reasonable size."
But NGOs point out that this could not have been the real reason. For, even thoug
