Call for International Actions against GATS - WTO
& the Privatization of Basic Services

Services Out of WTO, WTO out of Services!
No to GATS! No New Deal in Hong Kong!

In the run up to the December 2005 Ministerial Conference of the World
Trade Organization (WTO) in Hong Kong, trade negotiators are under intense
pressure by their respective governments to achieve a “successful” outcome
in the negotiations for the Doha Development Round, which includes
expansion of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). As WTO
leaders have tried to ensure by stealthily hatching the July Framework in
2004, services liberalization agreements should be accelerated and national
polices must be made with greater flexibility, such that more markets are
pried open to global trade not just in manufactured goods but in services
as well.

In truth, there is more than just the acceleration of services
liberalization in GATS. Contrary to how it is packaged, GATS is not the
trade agreement that it is but one-sided investment tool that gives global
corporations increasingly unhampered access to markets and human services,
and grants them as much if not even greater rights than citizens to exploit
such access. The WTO and the European Commission have said as much,
respectively flaunting GATS as the first multilateral agreement on
investments and principally as an instrument of business.

Practically all sectors, from water delivery and transportation to health
and education are considered services under GATS. Any barrier to global
capital in these sectors, including national safeguards against inhuman
working conditions or environmental degradation will be steadily
demolished. In fact, the very sovereign rights of nations to protect the
interests of citizens and uphold their welfare, above all, have no place
under the GATS framework.

Other agents of global corporate domination -- the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund -- have long imposed policy conditionalities of
liberalization, deregulation and privatization upon South countries, with
disastrous and fatal outcomes for entire populations and economies of the
developing world. Governments have been pressured to deregulate and
privatize public services, like water, power and health, depriving millions
of the basic requirements for a decent life. Poor farmers, workers, women
and children severely suffer the adverse impacts of surrendering control of
public services to private corporations.
GATS-WTO further limits developing countries’ chances of development and
survival. Water resources and services, recognized as crucial to
development, are particularly in danger of commodification and
privatization. European water giants have already been making large
investments in many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The
interests of firms like Suez, Vivendi and Thames Water are clearly behind
the European Union’s push for the inclusion of water services in the
coverage of GATS.
Experiences across South countries show that the basic rights of people,
especially the poor and the marginalized, are being progressively eroded by
governments surrendering such critical services sectors as health, water,
power, housing and education to private big business. Many countries in the
South have suffered outbreaks of cholera and other gastro-intestinal
diseases because safe water and basic health care are increasingly being
made accessible only to those with the capacity to pay.

GATS proponents deceitfully argue that governments can choose to keep
certain sectors closed and that privatization of basic social services is
not a GATS requirement. But GATS has very clear bias for private business
and non-transparent WTO mechanisms favor developed nations, and processes
allow them to apply intense pressure on developing countries.
It is most urgent to raise our voices and create a strong wave of
international opposition against GATS and the WTO. From now to December,
let us mobilize in our own countries and manifest our protests in various
ways.

We call on social movements, people’s organizations and non-government
organizations to hold regionally-coordinated actions on October 19th to
protest against GATS and privatization, at the start of the WTO General
Council meeting in Geneva.

At the forthcoming 6th Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, let us raise
our voices, collectively pool our strengths to mobilize against GATS, and
mark December 14 as the International Day of Protest Against GATS and
privatization!

Signed: ( Please sign on and send signatures to
[email protected] [2] )

ASIA/PACIFIC -Regional Formations
Jubilee South – APMDD
Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives
Focus on the Global South
Via Campesina – Asia
Asia Forum for Human Rights and Development
Asian Migrants Center
Migrant Forum in Asia
NGO Forum on ADB
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development

AZERBAIJAN
Center for Civic Initiatives

BANGLADESH
Community Development Library
Lokoj Institute

CAMBODIA
Womyn’s Agenda for Change
Partnership for Development in Kampuchea

HONG KONG
Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions,
Filipino Domestic Helpers General Union

INDIA
Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti
National Confederation of Officers Associations of Central Public Sector
Undertakings
India Social Action Forum
People's Monitoring Group on Electricity Regulation
The Association of Karnataka Farmers
Centre for Organization, Research and Education
River Basin Movement

INDONESIA
Koalisi Anti-Utang
KAU – Juwa Timor
International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development
KRUHA – People’s Coalition for the Rights to Water
WALHI
FSPI- Federasi Serikat Petani Indonesia
JATAM – Mining Advocacy Network
Working Group on Power Sector Restructuring
Transportation and Delivery Workers Federation

JAPAN
Anti WTO / ATTAC
Jubilee Kyushu on World Debt and Poverty
Peace Boat

KOREA
Korean People’s Action Against FTAS and WTO (KOPA)
Korean Public Services Union
Korean Government Employees' Union
Korean Labour Social Network on Energy
People’s Health Coalitions for Equitable Society
Korean Catholic Farmers Movement
Korean Education Solidarity
Altogether

MALAYSIA
Monitoring Sustainability of Globalization
Friends of the Earth

MALDIVES
Society for Health Education

NEPAL
Rural Reconstruction Nepal
All Nepal Women’s Association
General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions
Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies
Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists

PAKISTAN
People’s Rights Movement
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum

PHILIPPINES
Freedom from Debt Coalition
BMP- Filipino Workers Solidarity
Railway Workers Union
SANLAKAS
KALAYAAN – Movement for People’s Freedom
MAKALAYA
Confederation of Independent Unions
KPP- Philippine Housing Rights Coalition
Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao

SRI LANKA
Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform
National Fisheries Solidarity
United Federation of Labor

THAILAND
PSI Thai Affiliates Council
Assembly of the Poor
Labour Union of Provincial Waterworks Authority
Labour Union of Electricity Generating Authority
NHA Union
Public Health
Communication Worker’s Union
Farmer’s Federations Association for Development
MEAWU
LUMWA
Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women

* Also adopted by the participants of the Conference on WTO, Development
and Migration, July 2005, Hong Kong