'Maran yielded in Doha at PM's instance'

By Our Staff Reporter

KOCHI, NOV. 16. The Vajpayee Government caved in at the last moment under pressure from the West to ratify the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha declaration, the well-known eco- feminist and anti-WTO activist, Dr. Vandana Shiva, who attended the Doha meet, told a select band of presspersons here on Friday.

Dr. Shiva, who felt the Doha meet was hijacked by the West using `blackmail and deceit', said the Indian delegation headed by the Union Commerce Minister, Mr. Murasoli Maran, had done a fine job resisting, till the last moment, the forcing of the Doha Development Agenda.

``However, Mr. Maran had to retreat after the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, called him up and asked him to succumb to the West's pressure,'' Dr. Shiva said. ``The Prime Minister did this after the British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, had spoken to him.'' According to Dr. Shiva, Mr. Blair had offered more Western aid to India if it went by the West's wishes at the WTO meet.

Dr. Shiva, who had staged protests against the WTO agenda in Doha, feels strongly that India should have called for a vote on the agenda and should not have let the declaration through.

She said India had failed mainly on two fronts: One, it failed to effectively question the removal of quantitative restrictions (QR) on imports of food grains and thus `reclaim' its right to food security; two, the issue of biodiversity could not be highlighted effectively.

She vowed to build pressure on the Government to let Parliament have a big say in such critical global trade treaties in future. She hoped that such pressure would be in place by the time the next WTO ministerial meet took place in another two years. She noted that the Government had kept Parliament out of the picture as regards the WTO even though it affected the life of every Indian.

Dr. Shiva said the U.S. and other powerful Western nations had come to Doha with a readymade agenda and pushed it through with threats, bribes, vile and treachery. The West achieved its success by wiping out all democratic opposition. The meet was literally held under the point of the gun, for the high-profile, flamboyant head of the U.S. delegation had always been ringed by some 100 heavily armed Marines. The Marines had taken over the meet venue and the U.S. troops were everywhere. The few Non- Government Organisations (NGOs) which had been let in to Doha had protested this saying that the U.S. military had no business in a global democratic meet.

Dr. Shiva alleged that the West had very cunningly and effectively used the Afghan war and terrorism to push its agenda down the throats of other nations. ``The poor Muslim countries which attended the meet had to go by the West,'' she claimed. ``They were afraid that if they questioned the Americans they would be branded pro-terrorists.'' The cloud of war was a camouflage for the West to bring the poor countries in line.

She said that unlike the 1999 Seattle ministerial conference, the Doha meet saw fewer protests because only a select few had been given the visa to go to Doha. Doha was cunningly selected as the meeting venue in view of the Seattle experience. Since NGOs had forced the Seattle meet to abandon, very few NGO activists were let in at Doha.

``The Doha declaration is an illegitimate and undemocratic one,'' she said. Democracy was `killed' at Doha and the meet was a one- man show of the West which rode roughshod of all the developing nations. It was an `American affair from A to Z, with the European Union getting its pound of flesh'. ``There was a lot of arm-twisting of the poor nations,'' she said. ``Some of the poor African nations were offered `bribes' in the form of Western aid to go along the West's wishes.''

Dr. Shiva claimed that the Doha meet was a `reconfirmation that the WTO is not a democratic institution'. ``It proved beyond doubt that the WTO is an institution to impose the agenda and interests of the rich countries on the poor ones.''

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