<nettime> ! against free trade

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

> From: Play Fair Europe! Aachen <playfair@asta.rwth-aachen.de
> Subject: Peoples' Movements vs. "Free" Trade and the WTO - Worldwide
> Conference - February 1998
> 
> 	**Please help us to distribute this message**
> 
> From the 23 to the 25 of February 1998, 600 representatives of peoples
> movements will meet in Geneva to establish a platform for worldwide action
> against trade liberalisation: the Peoples' Global Action against "Free"
> Trade and the WTO (PGA).
> 
> The PGA will work as a tool for coordination, exchange of information and
> mutual support for the struggles of all those hit by neoliberal
> globalisation. It calls for non-violent civil disobedience and the
> construction of local alternatives by local people, as answers to the
> action of multilateral institutions, governments and corporations.
> 
> The first big-scale action in the calendar of the PGA will be a wave of
> decentralised mobilisations and protests all over the world parallel to the
> Second Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which
> shall take place on 18-20 May 1998.
> 
> The meeting in February will be the founding conference of the PGA, since
> it will lay down the basis of the alliance in the form of a manifesto. It
> is being convened by a committee formed by some of the most representative
> peoples' movements of all continents, including peasant movements (like the
> Brazilian Movimento Sem Terra, the Indian KRRS and the Peasant Movement of
> the Philippines), indigenous peoples (like the Mexican Zapatistas, the
> Nigerian Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, the Indigenous
> Women's Network of North America and the Pacific and FIA, a Maori
> organisation from Aotearoa), unions (like the Central Sandinista de
> Trabajadores from Nicaragua) and women's organisations (like Mama 86, an
> organisation of Ukranian women affected by the Chernobyl disaster, and the
> above mentioned Indigenous Women's Network).
> 
> Other events will take place around the first PGA conference. From the 18
> to the 21 of February, there will be several information and discussion
> roundtables on topics such as gender, food production, culture, economics,
> etc.,  prepared by organisations participating in the conference. On
> February 22 there will be a one-day intensive seminar on the WTO, the MAI
> and trade liberalisation. On February 26 there will be a number of
> coordination and planning sessions in small groups, divided according to
> the topics treated in the roundtables. Finally, on February 27 there will
> be a European meeting to launch a Europe-wide movement of civil
> disobedience against "free" trade.
> 
> If you want more information about the PGA and its first conference, please
> visit the web page http://www.agp.org or send a message to
> playfair@asta.rwth-aachen.de
> 
> IMPORTANT: If you are interested in this conference and come from Africa,
> Asia, Latin America or Central and Eastern Europe, please get in touch with
> the conference secretariat RIGHT NOW, even if you are not sure about your
> participation. The Swiss visa procedure is probably the most difficult one
> in the whole world. There will be limited funds to support the travel
> expenses of some delegates; you will receive more information about this at
> the beginning of 1998, but you should anyhow send your application now.

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