FAO Meeting Concludes with Fight over Free Trade
The showdown which was underway at
the Rome FAO conference, between the forces of national
sovereignty and the pushers of globalization, broke out in the
open in the fight over the final communique in Rome, according to
EIR's correspondent Alexander Pusch. Pusch describes the
situation as follows:
"This [the showdown-ed] became very clear during the final
hours of the summit, when the Committee of the Whole after many
hours was still not in a position to agree on the final
declaration from the conference. This was, thanks to, first and
foremost, the delegations of Argentina, Venezuela, and many other
countries of the `South,' who would not bend to the pressure to
support a condemnation of `restricted trade' in the declaration.
"Out of this allegedly formal protest grew a full-fledged
rebellion of the Ibero-American countries, who had solidarity
with the hungry of the world, and denounced the mendacity of the
debate. The representative of Venezuela made clear in a very
moving way, in her final intervention, that with this summit, an
opportunity would have been tragically passed up. The 900 million
people who suffer each day from hunger, cannot wait.... All that
was lacking, in addition, was that this was the result of willful
sabotage of initiatives by the delegations of Great Britain, the
U.S.A., and other countries true to the empire."
The Egyptian delegation was equally angry, insisting in
closed door discussions on food as a human rights issue, and
going after speculation in food and energy, hard, EIR organizers
here also reported. {Action}, not diplomacy is needed, they
demanded. The President of Senegal also was a forceful opponent
of the free trade/WTO dogmas, peddled by some of the advanced
sector delegations.
Thus, the release of the final declaration kept being put
off. What was first to be released at 5 pm, then became 7 pm,
then 9 pm, and was yet to be posted as the day ended. There are
reports from Rome that at least one country, Argentina, will
submit a dissenting statement, rejecting the final communique, as
it was being worked out.
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