Indonesian Peoples' Alliance (IPA)

Declaration of the Peoples’ Global Camp
Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia
3-6 December 2013
 
 
We, representatives of people’s organizations, social movements and
political forces come together in the People’s Global Camp (PGC) in
Denpasar, Bali on December 3-6, 2013 to collectively expose, resist
and call to junk the renewed neoliberal offensives of the World Trade
Organization.
 
We bring the experiences of struggles from Australia, Bangladesh,
Cambodia, Fiji, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South
Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Slovakia,
Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor Leste,
Vietnam, and the United States, to further advance the people’s rights
and to affirm our collective resistance against the new round of
deception and maneuverings pushed by the WTO in this 9th Ministerial
Meeting.
 
The WTO Bali conference is the latest imperialist effort to revive the
failed neoliberal paradigm. As the multiple crises continue to
reverberate around the world, impacting the poorest both in developed
and developing countries, imperialist powers led by the US, European
Union and Australia are desperately pushing a new wave of neoliberal
globalization through the so-called ‘Bali Package’ and on the set of
issues identified as the post-Bali agenda.
 
This round of negotiations is a critical arena for monopoly
capitalists to circle around, if not dismantle, the roadblocks to
further neo-liberal globalization.. As WTO Director-General Roberto
Azevêdo puts it, “it is all or nothing now. We must tie the package up
once and for all.” Imperialists block proposals that ran counter to
its interests, and use media to portray India as the culprit for
preventing consensus on the Bali Package, although the India-led G33
proposal does not respond to the demands for food sovereignty.
 
The Bali Package further brings down barriers to liberalization,
deregulation and privatization while attempting to lull opposition
through vague and non-binding measures purportedly supporting Least
Developed Countries (LDCs). Even the so-called “Peace Clause” is a
pitiful trade-off as it is only temporary, and comes with difficult
conditions to actually provide any protection at all for developing
countries.
 
But even if the WTO fails to deliver on the Bali agenda, monopoly
capitalism will find other, more insidious ways to advance their
neoliberal agenda through bilateral and regionally negotiated trade
agreements.
 
Neoliberal globalization, imposed through neocolonial dictates or
outright coercion, opens the natural and human resources of countries
to plunder, and precludes self-reliant and sustainable economic
development responsive to the peoples’ interests. Rather than mitigate
the effects of the global capitalist crisis, the neoliberal regime
aggravates the severe impoverishment, exploitation, displacement and
repression of the working classes and the rest of the people.
 
Everywhere, workers face depressed wages and erosion of labor rights,
peasants are driven out of their lands, Indigenous Peoples’ customs,
practices, rights to land, territories, resources and
self-determination is violated, fisherfolks lose the riches of the
seas and their livelihood, women and children suffer rampant
oppression in all spheres and become more vulnerable to violence,
youth are denied access to education and jobs, urban poor communities
suffer from massive unemployment and are demolished with residents
forcibly evicted from their homes and deprived of livelihood, many
people are deprived of the basic social services like health, for
example people living with HIV/AIDS accessing medicine; and even the
middle class are driven into poverty. Tens of millions have been
forced by desperation to find work overseas and be treated as
commodities and modern-day slaves.
 
From Seattle, to Hong Kong and now in Bali, people’s movements have
consistently resisted neoliberal globalization’s attacks on people’s
rights through militant struggle. We asserted the principles of
sovereignty, human rights and justice to counter attempts to defend
the system that favors monopoly capitalists and the local exploiting
classes in our countries.
 
We in the Peoples’ Global Camp, uphold the Bandung principles on
international relations based on human rights, solidarity, equality
and cooperation set sixty years ago. The Asia-Africa Conference of
1955 in Bandung, Indonesia rejected attempts by major powers to deny
the independence of other nations through colonial and neocolonial
means or by fostering various forms of dependence. The Bandung
Declaration reflects the people’s aspirations for genuine
socio-economic development as the material basis for national
sovereignty.
 
We, participants of the Peoples Global Camp, call for a just framework
for trade and development that is geared towards the realization of
peoples’ economic, political, social, and cultural well-being.
 
Grassroots organizations and peoples’ movements across the world
representing those suffering from the unjust trade system set up by
the WTO have called for the complete rejection of the WTO and its
promotion of trade liberalization and the neoliberal agenda.
 
We have had enough of misleading platitudes and false solutions. The
WTO is not the answer to address the multiple crises caused and
aggravated by neoliberal globalization. Towards our goal for a system
change and sustainable development for all, there is no other just,
right and immediate call but to JUNK WTO!
 
Trade and genuine sustainable development for the people and the
planet, not for corporate profits!