The second draft of General Council of WTO has been issued in Geneva on Friday, is once again a mock epic with the developing countries says Sustainable Agriculture Action Group (Saag) an umbrella of civil society organisations and farmers groups in Pakistan.
The first draft framework which was released on July 16, 2004 to bring the WTO negotiations back on track met great deal opposition by the delegations of developing countries in Geneva and in their perspective capitals.
But even after the two weeks of excessive negotiations by the delegations in Geneva the new document does not accommodate the serious concerns of developing countries. The developed countries kept on pressurising the developing countries to accept the draft on one hand and were inflexible make any change in the document.
The framework, which covers the issues of most importance of developing countries, has been given only few hours for developing countries to give their input on it taken from their capitals. This is how WTO and the alliance of rich countries play with the destiny of poor countries.
The framework is biased regarding the geographical indications and cotton, which is the concern of millions of people in the world because of European Union (EU) protection and US subsidies respectively.
The document discusses the issue to be taken up by the International Financial Institutions rather than having the reduction in the subsidies. This is another tool which the rich countries are trying the get into the cotton.
Saag condemns that the draft once again favours the rich countries in agriculture.
Saag condemns the WTO chair of General Council, Oshima that he is not ready to incorporate any change in the draft released this morning. So he is making the scripture of the draft which is nothing but a recipe of poverty for the developing countries.
The poor countries including G-90 has long been demanding that the Non Agriculture Market Access (NAMA) should not be based on the same text as that of Cancun which derailed the negotiations there. But General Council does not bring the issue into consideration and NAMA is now contentious issue in WTO at the moment.
Saag stress the government not to come under the pressure of these rich countries ever asserted agenda, which is always in the favour of few Multi National Companies and is loaded against the millions of poor souls of developing countries. Saag appeals the parliament and the political parties to come up deal with the issue on the floor of the parliament.