Free Trade = Poverty, war environmental destruction, anti-union laws, cuts to health + education.

Join the world call to derail the WTO?s meeting in Cancun.

The participants of the Hemispheric and Global Assembly against the Free Trade of the Americas and the WTO (held in Mexico City on May 11-12, 2003) declared their intention and commitment to derail the Fifth Ministerial of the World Trade Organization that will take place in Cancun (Mexico) in September. They also called on people and movements in all countries to launch massive united and coordinated action including 13 Sept the Day of massive demonstrations against globalization and War.

AS THE PARTICIPANTS RESOLVED:

• The WTO Ministerial will take place in the context of escalating US military aggression against the peoples and nations of the world. Washington's invasion and occupation of Iraq is simply the latest and most outrageous case of the Bush administration's unrestrained unilateralist foreign policy. The WTO is war by other means. The WTO represents the most ambitious effort to resubjugate the economies of the countries of the South to serve the interests of transnational corporations. The neoliberal, free-trade paradigm incarnated in the WTO subverts the interests of people both in the South and the North. It's legacy is greater poverty, inequity, gender inequality, and indebtedness throughout the world. It has also accelerated the destruction of the global environment.

Today, the WTO, along with the other mechanisms of corporate control, notably the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, are suffering an historic crisis of credibility and legitimacy. Against the massive misery they offer, global civil society is coming together to forge creative alternatives to bring about a truly just global order. Against a future of war, injustice, and permanent crisis offered by the US, European Union, and the institutions of corporate rule, global civil society offers a future of justice, peace, and solidarity.

But even as the WTO institutionalizes stagnation, injustice, and poverty, Washington is busy attempting to forge more corporate chains to subjugate the South by intimidating the governments of Latin America to sign on to the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA).?

And in Australia Howard is actively pursuing a free trade agreement with the US. Howard sees this as a way to entrench Australia as a junior partner to US dominance of Asia and to further penetrate the large US market. The US sees a free trade agreement with Australia as a springboard into the Asia region. In neither case is the interests of the working people of Asia, the US or Australia a factor. Free trade is all about securing profits. And when trade is hampered then the US (with ready support from Australia) will unleash its military to forcibly open markets as has now been done with Iraq. Howard?s deployment of troops to the Solomons follows years of Australian companies sucking the country dry - the deployment itself is seen as a way to stabilize the country for the further extraction of profits. Howard also hopes to legitimize Australian troop intervention and disarm the critics of Howard?s bloodthirsty support for the attack on Iraq (and previously Afghanistan).

The US-based multinational Halliburton has been awarded a billion dollar contract to rebuilt Iraq?s oil infrastructure. US Vice-President Dick Chaney must be happy he got an $18 million golden handshake when he stepped down as a director of that company ? and now his shares are worth more as Halliburton shares in the corporate looting of Iraq.

But Halliburton is only the first target for the day. Bring your issue! Be it anti-war, free Palestine, depleted uranium, free education, stop Sea swap or free refugees mobilize yourself and your group (if you are in one). Let's make the links and build our movement. Another world is possible!

Organising meetings at 6.30pm on 1st & 8th September at 77 Stirling Street, Northbridge.