**ACTION REQUEST**ACTION REQUEST**ACTION REQUEST**

Dear OWINFS Members--

We are in the last week or so of our effort to get more sign-ons for
our letter. We need at least 150, and so far we have approximately 50.
IF YOU HAVE NOT SIGNED ON, PLEASE DO SO NO LATER THAN THIS FRIDAY MARCH
7th!! (instructions below). IF YOU HAVE SIGNED, PLEASE SCAN THE LIST OF
SIGNATORS, AND FORWARD THIS TO ORGANIZATIONS/SOCIAL MOVEMENTS THAT YOU
KNOW WOULD STRENGTHEN OUR FORCES (Spanish translation of letter going
out under separate cover). IF YOU HAVE ALREADY SIGNED, make sure to read
the following parapraph!

BASED ON THE OUTCOME OF THE FEB 25th SERVICES CALL, WE HAVE ADDED
LANGUAGE TO THE ORIGINAL LETTER THAT MENTIONS THE RECENT EU LEAK, AND
THAT MAKES MORE EXPLICIT OUR CALL FOR A MORATORIUM (the latter was in
the original letter, but is more strongly highlighted in this version).
If you have already signed the letter there is no need to reconfirm.
HOWEVER, if you wish to take your name off of the letter, please e-mail
"[email protected]"--and put "remove our sign-on" in the
subject line (we must receive this by Friday March 7th)

The added langague is as follows (full letter at the bottom of this
e-mail, and attached as a Word doc):

Upon reviewing the leaked documents which contain the
requests by the European Commission to 109 member countries, we are
shocked by the extent of the EC requests. No longer can it be said
that these negotiations are not about essential public services, for
certainly water/sewer, energy and postal services are essential.
Other requests as well have significant implications for the public.

We therefore call on WTO member countries to declare an immediate
moratorium on these negotiations until such time as there can be full
public transparency and involvement in assessing the potential impact
of the requests which have been made. No offers should be made under
this moratorium. During the moratorium each country should establish
a process for the public to have a voice in what services are opened
to foreign competition under the GATS rules.

PLEASE SIGN ON BY DOING THE FOLLOWING:
1) Please send an e-mail to: [email protected]
which includes:

Organizational Name
Country (please make sure to include this...many are forgetting)
Contact person
e-mail for the contact person

**note: there is no longer a need to send the name of the head of your
organization, as it was decided that the "sign-on" part of the letter
will only contain organization/social movement names.

Letter appears below, and is also attached:
____________________________________________________
INTERNATIONAL LETTER TO ALL WTO MEMBER COUNTRIES

NO SECRET DEALS ON SERVICES

MAKE GATS REQUESTS AND OFFERS PUBLIC & ADOPT IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM

Services are the lifeblood of all societies. The manner in which
they are provided is of critical importance to all people. For this
reason, the undersigned organizations, representing millions of
concerned citizens around the world from both developed and
developing countries, find it totally unacceptable to have the World
Trade Organization and its Member Countries enter into secret
negotiations regarding the rules for the provision of services,
rather than proceeding in an open and participatory manner.

At the Fourth Ministerial of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in
Doha last November, a tight schedule was adopted for member countries
to submit their initial requests and offers to open up more services
to foreign competition. These requests and offers form the backbone
of negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
Initial requests were due June 30, 2002 and initial offers in
response to the requests are due by March 31, 2003.

We call on all WTO member countries to make public the full documents
containing the GATS requests and offers at the time they are issued
and received, either by acting unilaterally or in unison with other
member countries. General summaries are not acceptable substitutes.
Since negotiations are taking place between countries without
intervention by the WTO, as acknowledged by the WTO itself, the
release of these documents is entirely within the jurisdiction of
Member Countries.

Upon reviewing the leaked documents which contain the
requests by the European Commission to 109 member countries, we are
shocked by the extent of the EC requests. No longer can it be said
that these negotiations are not about essential public services for
certainly water/sewer, energy and postal services are essential.
Other requests as well have significant implications for the public.

We therefore call on WTO member countries to declare an immediate
moratorium on these negotiations until such time as there can be full
public transparency and involvement in assessing the potential impact
of the requests which have been made. No offers should be made under
this moratorium. During the moratorium each country should establish
a process for the public to have a voice in what services are opened
to foreign competition under the GATS rules.

We wish to note that the impact on domestic regulatory authority goes
far beyond removing regulations that discriminate between foreign and
domestic service providers. Even where there is no discrimination,
GATS calls for domestic regulations to be "no more burdensome than
necessary to ensure the quality of the service." The WTO Working
Group on Domestic Regulation is negotiating how this provision should
be implemented. This process must also be open to public input and
debate.

Services are intimately linked to every aspect of our lives --
hospitals, schools, postal systems, provision of drinking water,
sewage treatment, electricity and other energy supplies -- to name
just a few. Their provision is closely tied to questions of equity,
justice and culture. Their provision has special impact on women
who, as the primary providers, producers, and consumers of social
services, are especially vulnerable to potential negative effects
arising from increasing liberalization of such services.
Liberalization of services trade will also affect local and national
laws regarding property rights such as ownership, transfer, leasing
of land and other public goods. For these reasons, the rules that
govern the provision of services must be a matter of public debate.

The privatization of essential public services, which has already
advanced very far in developing countries under the IMF structural
adjustment programs, has led to foreign control of services, a
resulting loss of national sovereignty, and a permanent exclusion of
the majority of the population from crucial health, education and
other services. GATS rules make it highly burdensome for countries to
return to provision of these services by the public sector if they
are unhappy with the privately provided services.

More broadly, GATS rules further advance foreign investment in both
public and private services, primarily by developed countries. These
rules lead to marginalization of domestic providers which lack the
economies of scale and greater loss of national control. The
current negotiations could result in tremendous reversal of national
investment policies in infrastructure, natural resources, and a
number of strategic industries and economic sectors. Clearly matters
of such critical public policy must not be negotiated in secret.

Developed countries could also experience significant negative
impacts. For instance, if environmental services are subjected to
market access rules, unlimited access to foreign-based corporations
would have to be given regarding municipal contracts for sewage,
garbage disposal, sanitation, and water services. Local governments
would be powerless to meet their core responsibility for the health
and safety of their communities.

Public parks, wildlife and old growth forests could all become even
more severely stressed if countries cannot limit the number of
service providers who then compete with one another to exploit these
resources. Further, as evidence accumulates regarding the negative
impacts of tourism on local communities and the environment, locally
specific laws to regulate this complex industry are essential.

So far, most processes related to the current GATS negotiations have
not respected fundamental concepts of transparency and democracy.
For example, it is only because the European Commission's (EC)
intended requests have been leaked to the public that we know that
the EC wants other countries to open up their public postal systems
and water collection and distribution systems to foreign competition.
The EC even wants other countries to have local laws regarding the
ownership of land changed to benefit foreign owners and to have
national research and development funds made available to foreign
corporations.

This is just the beginning. As yet we have no knowledge of what
other countries are requesting. Nor will we know what countries offer
in response. Unless the public is allowed to see the requests and
offers, we can only speculate.

Without public input which is critical to examining the potential
impacts of requests and offers, there can be no meaningful assessment
of the impact of this new round of GATS requests and offers. To make
matters worse, the continued call by many countries for an effective
mechanism of assessment of services has gone unheeded by the WTO.

We welcome statements from a few countries which indicate that they
are taking some initiatives to make their requests and offers public.
However, it is essential for the WTO to adopt a uniform standard that
all requests and offers be a matter of public record at the time such
requests and offers are made by member countries. Further, since the
outcome of these negotiations is of highest public concern, there
must be an opportunity for open, public debate within each country as
the requests and offers change during the course of negotiations.

Based on our public transparency and substantive concerns detailed
above, we call upon our governments to give their full attention to
addressing these matters and to initiate an immediate moratorium on
the current GATS negotiations.

* Action Aid Bangladesh, Bangladesh
* Africa Faith and Justice Network
* Africa Gender and Trade Network
* Alliance for Democracy, US
* Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, US
* Alliance to Expose the GATS, Austalia
* Arab NGO Network for Development, Lebanon
* ASEED Europe
* Asia Gender and Trade Network
* Attack France
* Attack Poland
* Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, Australia
* Austrian Mountain Farmers Association, Austria
* Berne Declaration, Switzerland
* Campaign for the Welfare State (For velferdsstaten), Norway
* Campaign for the Reform of the World Bank, Italy
* Center for Encounters and Active-Nonviolence, Austria
* Center of Concern: U.S. Gender and Trade Network, US
* Consumers' Association of Penang Malaysia, Malaysia
* Corporate Europe Observatory
* Council of Canadians, Canada
* Dachverband Entwichlungspolitischer Organization in Karnten,
Austria
* El-amel Association for Social Development, Algiers
* EQUATIONS, India
* Focus on the Global South, Thailand, Philippines, India, Geneva
* Friends of the Earth, Malaysia
* Friends of the Earth, US
* Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, US
* Global Exchange, US
* Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF), Philippines
* Institute for Global Justice (IGJ), Indonesia
* Institut de recherches de la FSU, France
* Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, US
* International Brotherhood of Teamsters, US
* Lunaria, Italy
* Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, US
* National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, US
* Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, US
* Public Services International, France
* Q-Bar, Indonesia
* Red Mexicana de Accion frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), Mexico
* Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, India
* Retired Members AMWU (Pld), Australia
* ROBA dell'Altro Mondo, Italy
* School Sisters of Nodre Dame, US
* Third World Network, Malaysia
* Union Aid Abroad, Austalia
* UFRIG (Chercheur auprès d'Oxfam Solidarité), Brussels, France,
Switzerland
* WTO Watch, Australia