INDIA/US: Citizens Groups Declare Solidarity on Eve of Clinton Visit

Dear Friends,

We enclose a US-India citizens declaration for a new solidarity and a
Citizens Vision Statement for a new Millennium to articulate the India US
partnership at the people's level to reverse globalisation.

This statement has been prepared jointly by a wide spectrum of Indian
movements and trade unions who are organising the Solidarity Convention on
11th March and by the IFG (International Forum on Globalisation) team in
Delhi just now for the Convention. The IFG team includes David Korten,
Edward Goldmsith, Colin Hines, Debi Barker and Mohd. Idris of Third World
Network.

The Declaration and Statement have been written in the context of Clinton's
visit to India, when Clinton and Vajyapee will issue their vision statement
based on commerce and corporate interest.

Please circulate the statement and send your endorsement to us at the
earliest so that we can issue the Statement on 11th March. Please remember
we are nearly 12 hours ahead, so your endorsement should us by 10th.

On behalf of IFG and Indian Solidarity team.

Sincerely,

Vandana Shiva

United States - India Citizens' Declaration For A New Solidarity

We, the citizens of the two largest democracies of the world, India and the
United States of America, are committed to deepening and defending the
democratic rights of citizens guaranteed by our Constitutions.

The democratic rights of citizens both in the North and the South are being
undermined as corporate rule is established worldwide through the World
Trade Organization (WTO) and the rich G7 countries. This dominant world
view puts global trade above all other economic activity, and places the
market above society, and profits above people and the environment. Human
lives are being rendered dispensable in the ruthless pursuit of limitless
market share, profits, and economic growth.

The U.S. government in particular has promoted the globalisation of
corporate rule and used its foreign policy and trade laws to colonise the
markets of Third World countries for transnational corporations, especially
in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, power, information, and communication.

There is a growing sense among citizens of diverse countries and cultures
that globalisation is corporatisation and that the U.S. Government is using
free trade treaties to establish a new global empire in which not only land
and markets are colonised by global corporations, but knowledge as well. It
is an economy that delinks financial gain from productive contribution.
While wages, labor unions, and the prices of basic commodities are
suppressed, corporations collect rents on knowledge through the
monopolization of intellectual property rights and speculators seek endless
profits in the global financial casino by creating and bursting financial
bubbles.

North-South inter-governmental relationships are being increasingly
re-molded from relationships between sovereign countries into relationships
between a global corporate empire and the colonized people of both the
geographical South and the geographical North.

As citizens of free societies we do not believe that the 21st century and
new millenium can be founded on extending the life of colonialism against
which the world's freedom movement fought so valiantly. We are committed to
continuing the citizens' agenda for democracy laid out on the streets of
Seattle to make the global trade subservient to principles and values
necessary for the protection of the of the environment, livelihoods and
our diverse cultures. We seek to assure the protections that guarantee
sustainability, justice and peace are achieved through open and democratic
processes within each of our societies--not through imperialistic measures
such as U.S. trade sanctions linked to labour and environmental standards
set by the WTO as was proposed by President Clinton in Davos in response to
the Seattle protests. The institutions and procedures of democracy are
being set aside in both our countries as our government have given up their
duty to protect the environment, jobs and livelihoods on the ground that
these are barriers to free trade. Since ecological and economic security
are foundations of our democratic freedoms and our very survival, defining
them as "trade barriers" to be dismantled for the sake of corporate profits
reveals the perversity of the globalisation paradigm and the free trade
rules set and enforced by the WTO.

These rules must change, as must the
relationship between the governments of the United States and India.
The sovereign democratic space of peoples is being invaded by the WTO in
both the North and the South. This is manifest in the distancing of people
from the decision making processes on economic issues both within and
between nations. This is a serious threat to the democratic principles
embodied in both the Indian and the U.S. constitutions. International trade
treaties should not be allowed to undermine our rights as members of
democratic societies to participate in economic democracy by having
security of livelihoods and the guarantee that our socio-economic needs
will be met in accordance with our priorities, cultural preference, and
available environmental resources.

Both in India and the United States, our governments have stopped
representing the people even though it is the people that elect them to
power. The U.S. government has long assumed that what is good for General
Motors is good for America. As the U.S. government presses globalization on
the world, it seems to assume that what is good for U.S. corporations such
as Monsanto and Cargil is good for the United States, India, and the rest
of the world.

The interests of global corporations are, however, in deep conflict with
the interests of the world's people, who are paying a heavy price in terms
of economic insecurity, environmental decay, social disintegration and
growing polarisation and inequality. Large numbers of people are being
politically and economically excluded by a system that caters only to
corporate well-being to the disregard of citizen well-being.

Instead of bringing enhanced prosperity to all, as it claims, the WTO has
in the five years of its existance concentrated ever more of the world's
wealth in the hands of a favored few, further impoverished the majority of
the world's people, and contributed to globalizing the environmentally
unsustainable patterns of production and consumption of the rich
industrialised countries.

The Uruguay Round Agreements have functioned principally to pry open
markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of
national economies; workers, farmers and other peoples; and the
environment. In addition, the WTO's rules and procedures are undemocratic,
non-transparent and non-accountable.

We see that economic globalization is increasing global economic
instability, inequality and environmental and social degradation everywhere
in its wake. Yet the governments of the North that dominate the WTO,
especially the United States, have refused to recognize and address these
problems. Instead they push for further liberalisation and seek to expand
tbe mandate of the WTO by defining "trade related" in ever broader terms.
At each step the resulting actions exacerbate the crises that the processes
of economic globalisation and the WTO have wrought.

We will no longer allow the protection of our rights and freedoms to be
labeled as trade protectionism. Trade ought only to be a means for
achieving just and sustainable development for people of the North and
South equally rather than perpetrating ever greater inequalities at all
levels.

We therefore join in solidarity to put forward the principles of an
alternative vision to guide cooperative relations between the peoples of
our two countries.

An Immediate Appeal to Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Clinton

In line with these principles we call for immediate action by Prime
Minister Vajpayee and President Clinton on the following issues;

1. Freeze the implementation of TRIPS pending public review and put in
place measures to end the piracy of indigenous knowledge and the world's
biological heritage by U.S. corporations.

2. Sign the Protocol on Bio-Safety and implement strong biosafety
regulations.

3. End any introduction of GMO seeds and foods into India and phase them
out in the United States.

4. End government subsidies for the introduction of E-commerce and assure
that E-commerce carries its same rightful share of taxes as any other
marketing channel so that small business and local economies are not
undercut by unfair, subsidized competition.

5. End the import of subsidized agricultural commodities into India to the
detriment of India's small farmers.

6. End government support for environmentally damaging projects such as the
Enron project that the United States forced on India.

7. Assure that all trade between the United States and India contributes to
the increased well-being and improved labor, social and environmental
rights of people in both countries.

8. Commit to relations of peace rather than relations of militarization.

______________

At the Solidarity Convention of People Against Globalisation, held at New
Delhi, India on Saturday 11th March 2000, we come together as citizens of
India and the United States in solidarity for the struggles of the peoples
of both our countries toward economic democracy. We have met on the eve of
the visit of the U.S. President to India, which we fear will further
advance the processes of anti-democratic globalisation, economic and
cultural colonisation and militarisation of the Indian sub-continent. As
citizens of free societies we will work to create another agenda based on
economic democracy, cultural diversity, sustainability, and peace. We will
not be divided and we will not allow "divide and rule" policies to subvert
the new politics of solidarity on which we will build our free and
democratic futures.

• 104 Globalization