In the Water

Doha Round collapses

As the maniacal slaughter and calculated destruction goes on by Israel/US in Lebanon, there's lots of reporting in the business press now on the collapse of the Doha Round after an 'emergency meeting' of the six major negotiating parties... i.e. the representatives of India, Brazil, US, EU, Japan, and Australia. Here is a pretty matter-of-fact report from the Financial Times, with the usual ideological line of course, and another pretty OK report from the Grauniad.

This was after the HK Ministerial in December 2005, of course, which ended in what was more-or-less a failure, the Doha Round being on a 'lifeline' after that.

By all accounts, it's one of the central contradictions of the 'free trade' doctrine that caused the collapse. According to the FT:

"The US continued to argue for big cuts in farm import tariffs to open up markets for its farmers, a demand fiercely rejected by the European Union, Japan and India, who said America had first to go further in offering to cut agricultural subsidies."

I.e. 'Free trade' is OK for you out there, but WE would never subject ourselves to that... WE need a big state to protect our interests and underwrite our profiteering. Nothing new, of course, and one could see something like this coming from the very concept of something like the WTO. But a pretty big incident nonetheless.

So the situation now isn't that this doctrine and ideology is dead, but probably that its vanguard will resort to different tactics... most likely bi-lateral and regional trade agreements. There  were already words to this effect by a French representative at the G6 meeting... anyway, check it out, and keep a closer eye on events closer to home as regional and bi-lateral trade agreements become more popular.

dizzidenza 2006

As the commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising and massacre draws nearer, dizzidenza once again aims to remember the spirit of the uprising... not through candlelight vigils or mourning, but by occupying and using an area of public space on the anniversary of the June 4 crackdown... For more information see dizzidenza's notice below, check the website that it links to, and contact them to find out more!!

"5 months after the struggle against WTO MC6 here at hong kong, life seems to have returned to normal. but is this normal truly normal? after the liberation we experienced. after the understanding we've gained. what is this life that we've returned to? what have we brought with us from the struggle into this life from the other life. then, we believed in the struggle and our solidarity. we put our heart and soul into the struggle and prayed that people united will never be defeated. now, what do we believed in. where do we rest our heart and soul and what do we pray for?

http://www.worldtradedoff.blogspot.com/

在香港的世貿抗爭後的五個月後的今天，生活似乎已回復正常。但這個常態是否就是真正的正常呢？感受過解放的感覺之後。取得對週遭多一分理解之後。我們回到的這一個生活究竟是一個怎麼樣的一個生活呢？我們又從抗爭中帶著一些甚麼回到這一個生活裡呢？當時，我們相信我們的連結及抗爭。我們全心全意投入於抗爭之中，更祈求我們的團結將可使大家不被擊潰。現在，我們相信的是甚麼？我們的心靈又歸於何處？我們又在祈求著甚麼？

http://www.worldtradedoff.blogspot.com/

dizzdenza from the southeast of mainland china

異議丹剎 中華大陸之東南"

HK Represent!

An image from the May 1 strike/boycott in San Francisco... and there's a HK person holding a sign in the back left!

Some thoughts on May 2

So, another International Labour Day has come and gone, with some of the expected, some of the usual, and some of the exciting. Probably some of the most exciting events this May 1 have been taking place in the United States, which, along with Canada, refuses to recognize International Labour Day and holds its own official holiday in September. Perhaps this has to do with the events of May, 1886?

In any case, a national day of action including a work stoppage and an economic boycott ('gran paro nacional') was called for May 1, 2006 by the strong and growing immigrant and undocumented workers' movement in the United States. In what was called "A Day Without an Immigrant", businesses were urged to close, workers to not go to work, and students to not go to schools,  in solidarity with the struggles of immigrants and undocumented workers in the US. The most prominent themes in earlier demonstrations seem to have been to highlight migrants' position in the US economy as workers, and also as equal members of society.

The most conservative reports have said that at least one million people across the US participated in the actions, while other reports have said at least twice that number. Reports in the business press are calling the events of May 1 a demonstration of economic clout by migrant workers.

In other places, since this is the designated 'labour day' and at least officially a public holiday for most of the rest of the world, it perhaps wasn't surprising that large rallies took place all across the planet, and Asia was no exception. There's too much to report on, of course, so here are just a few of some of the interesting actions and occurences I heard about...

In India a reported crowd of around 100,000 marched in Kolkata, while a separate demonstration in the city saw around 4,000 sex workers participating and calling for social justice. In neighbouring Sri Lanka, however, there was a "voluntary decision" by concerned parties to call off May Day rallies, due to fears over the escalating violence in the country. In Japan, some two million people are estimated to have joined labour rallies across the country, including hundreds who participated in a demonstration held by temporary, part-time and unemployed workers for the second year running. As people prepared to demonstrate in Malaysia, the government there "vowed" to suppress workplace strikes and cut them "to zero". In the Philippines the history of May 1 struggles continued with a large rally in Manila... actions by workers and organizations also took place in Palestine, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand...

So how about here in Hong Kong? A march of about 1,000-2,000 people, more than half of whom were migrant workers from Indonesia and the Philippines, gathered in Victoria Park and marched to the Central Government Offices, after which a number of performances and speeches were given. Although the mood was generally positive and lively, the relative absence of local Chinese workers was once again very evident. Indeed, the ability of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) to organize people to come out even during a completely risk-free time such as International Labour Day seems to be diminishing every year (the HKCTU contingent was about 300 people, generously speaking), overshadowed by migrant workers' organizations, who consistently bring out thousands of people even though they face significantly greater obstacles and risks to organizing.

What does this mean? To a hopeful cynic like myself, it points to the increasing irrelevance of a union federation as it is organized by HKCTU. While the group is relatively flushed with resources, and has a number of excellent organizers and committed individuals involved, it seems to not be able to identify or effectively address the deteriorating work situation for most people over here. It seems that a 'traditional' union, organizing in different industrial sectors or among people with long-term contract jobs for example, won't seem relevant to the increasing number of part time, casual, temporary, non-contract, undocumented, or unemployed workers as is happening in Hong Kong. Indeed, even getting a day off to demonstrate on the public holiday of May 1 seemed like a privilege when we walked through the streets, looking at retail and service industry workers going through one of their busiest workdays, and hearing from organizers that many more migrant domestic workers would have come out but most of their employers give them either zero or significantly reduced holidays.

So what is the hopeful part? If not a traditional 'trade-union' (a "trad-union"?), then what kind of organizing would be more relevant to us and to the majority of people in our city? Perhaps we can learn from some of the organizing that has been taking place in the US, or the much smaller rally in Japan,  or even our own local organizing among migrant workers. Rather than focusing on the protection of relative privilege such as long-term job contracts, and rights for those with documented or 'full' immigration status, these campaigns have directly or indirectly, seem to confront the issues of class, work and labour as issues of exploitation.

To me they do this either by directly organizing against increased attacks on the rights already won by working people (attacks which most of us are experiencing through increased 'casualization', no-contracts, diminished pay, longer working hours, more temporary part-time staff, and unemployment), or directly campaigning against the extreme vulnerability of workers due to their undocumented status (or in the case of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, due to their 'special' immigration status). These are issues that 'trad unions' here in HK may have mentioned but either haven't been able to address or come to terms with.  And crucially, of course, the campaigns I've mentioned feature central involvement by people facing the brunt of this exploitation themselves rather than from some union federation bureaucracy.

So, to end a long rambling story, exploitation seems to me to be at the heart of labour issues under capitalism (or state socialism) and thus seems to be an effective place to start organizing.

Wow, what a great and completely original conclusion that has never been mentioned before.
Having taken the long road to that ridiculously obvious point, I'm now going to do what we all need to do... get off my ass and do something!!!

Happy May 1!

Extremely interesting talk, extremely short notice

I just got wind of this today, so please excuse the short notice. Nahoko Tokato, one of the Japanese activists taken hostage in Iraq in 2004, will be giving a talk at HKU today, Feb 13 at 17:30. Yeah, that's about as  short as notice gets. Anyway, here is the information as sent to me by a friend who's involved in organizing the talk...

"[N]ahoko was held hostage in baghdad in 2004 and released after 9 days. but it's not her adventure story i want to promote, but her great work she has done to the iraqi street kids. most important is her courage to expose the truth in the war time esp. the genocide taken place in fallujah. for the talk today, she will show us the video clips taken by the fallujah people during the most horrible time in  april 2004 - the heavy US bombing that created massive civilian deaths..."

The free talk will be held at 17:30 today in:

Room T5,

Ming Wah Complex Building

Hong Kong University

Click here for info and maps on how to get there from various parts of HK...

Reply from Venezuela on the Sing Tao deception

The story that has been all over the blog this week, on the Sing Tao Daily's use of a picture from an anti-government demonstration in Venezuela in 2004 to demonize anti-WTO protestors in Hong Kong in 2005, takes a new twist.

If you remember, the wonderful website venezuelanalysis.com had run a copy of the picture during its coverage of those demos back in 2004, and had credited it to one Ernesto Navarro. With the help of folks from that website, I managed to contact Mr. Navarro and ask for some information regarding his involvement with the photograph, his correspondance with Sing Tao about its use, and his opinions on how it had actually been used.

His reply to me revealed some very interesting, but on the other hand entirely predictable things. Rather than some elaborate and clever conspiracy, it seems to me that someone at the newspaper basically cut and pasted the photograph from somewhere on the internet, and used it in order to back up the gung-ho pro-police line that that article and the newspaper were taking.

In more ways than one, that was very, very stupid. Ernesto Navarro and the people who actually took the photograph, a community media group based in Caracas, are pissed about it's use, as you can read in his reply, posted below. It's up to us now to make them regret trying to pull this deception, and to put as much pressure on them and other media institutions as possible...

Anyway, here is the majority of Ernesto Navarro's reply to me... my English translation first, then the original Spanish:

I have received with much astonishment the information submitted regarding a photograph, judged to be my work, for various reasons:

1). I want to express that this photograph that is referenced was taken in CARACAS, in one of the protests that aims to destabilize the democratically-elected government of Venezuela, and intends to create a situation of insecurity in the country.

2). Said photograph is part of a series of photographs belonging to [the group] Medios de Comunicacion Independientes y Comunitarios. The photograph is not mine, I was put in charge of distributing it on the internet, and I am upset that it has been judged as mine rather that its real author’s.

3). At no point did they communicate with me to solicit the use of the photograph—repeat, taken in CaracasVenezuela in the year 2004.

4). I am a Venezuelan journalist, and collaborate on the websites: www.aporrea.org, www.postalesdelsur.net, www.porlalibre.org, www.nuestraamerica.info, www.adital.net.br, www.aliados.net, www.redvoltairnet.org, among others. My professional and ideological position is expressed in my articles.

5). I express my profound rejection of the manipulation of information for whatever end. I defend the freedom of expression and the right of citizens to be informed in an opportune and truthful manner.

6). I reject the use of any press material for the public that is distorted, and in this way accuses citizens.

7). I express my support for the 14 young people detained, in the sense that the truth of their actions should be found, and they should not be accused nor slandered by the manipulation of images that are circulating on the internet.

---

He recibido con mucho asombro la información que me suministra sobre la utilización de una fotografía, adjudicada a mi autoría, por varias razones:

1.- Quiero expresar que esa fotografía a la que hace referencia fue tomada en CARACAS, en una de las protestas que, manifestantes desestabilizadores del gobierno democrático de Venezuela, intentaron crear una situación de intranquilidad en el país-.

2.- Dicha fotografía forma parte de una secuencia de fotos que pertenecen a Medios de Comunicación Independientes y Comunitarios. La fotografía no es mía, yo fui el encargado de distribuirla por internet y lamento que me la adjudicaran y no a sus verdadero autor.

3.- En ningún momento se comunicaron conmigo para solicitar la utilización de la fotografía, repito, hecha en Caracas, Venezuela en el año 2004. Tampoco para contactar a su autor.

4.- Soy periodista venezolano, colaborador de los sitios: www.aporrea.org, www.postalesdelsur.net, www.porlalibre.org, www.nuestraamerica.info, www.adital.net.br, www.aliados.net, www.redvoltairnet.org, y otros sitios. Mi posición ideológica y profesional está expresada en mis artículos periodísticos.

5.- Expreso mi profundo rechazo a la manipulación de la información para cualquier fin. Defiendo la libertad de expresión y el derecho de los ciudadanos a estar informados de forma oportuna y veraz.

6.- Rechazo la utilización de cualquier material de prensa, por público que sea, para tergiversarlo y de esta forma acusar a ciudadanos.

7.- Expreso mi apoyo a los 14 jóvenes detenidos en el sentido de que se busque la verdad de los hechos, pero que no sean acusados, ni calumniados manipulando imágenes que circulan por internet.

Atentamente,

Lic. Ernesto J. Navarro

Periodista Venezolano

Caracas, 07 de enero de 2006

Terminators at the anti-WTO actions?

Above: Chanting "Up, Up, WTO!". pro-WTO police forces used powerful laser weapons systems to shoot death-rays at the anti-WTO protestors (Photo: Cut-and-pasted off the Internet without permission)

Ah the standards of corporate journalism. If the above were printed in the paper tomorrow, what do you think the response would be? Well, similarly, as I wrote a couple of days ago, Sing Tao must not be allowed to get away with this...

WTO Detainees Begin Hunger Strike

Below is a statement from 12 of the 14 people detained over their anti-WTO actions in Hong Kong in December. Things are looking a bit grim and desperate over here. Please send messages of support and solidarity to antiwto2005@naver.com and hkpa.documentation@gmail.com and PLEASE try to organise support actions wherever you may be... any support would help

Beginning The Hunger Strike for Solidarity and Justice

Our Struggle Against the WTO Is Not Over

We came to Hong Kong to protest against the 6th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization. We are peasants. We are living with land and nature. We are workers. We are facing hazardous conditions at the workplace full of iron dust.  We are homeless rights activists. We are working with and for the poor on the street. Amongst us, one suffers from asthma, another is claustrophobic, and still one has diabetes. A peasant had to leave his wife just after the birth of his first child to come to Hong Kong and is unfortunately missing the celebration of his son's first hundred day celebration.

We want to live in a world where everyone is equal and justice prevails. We believe that regardless of whether one is rich or poor, they should have a right to decent education. We believe if one's life is in jeopardy, then they have the right to access quality healthcare service. We are convinced that it should be people who control drinking water and natural resources as it has been generation by generation. Food and agriculture were not to be given to Transnational corporations seeking for profit, but to be protected for safe food for all.  However, neoliberalism-driven globalisation and the WTO system deprive us of our rights and beliefs.

We wanted to publicise that there is an alternative voice, alternative to the myth that 'free trade' and globalisation are the only hopes available to the people. We wanted to echo that our livelihood, lives, food and people's rights are not a commodity. However, we don't have an effective method to spread our voices. Instead, the only space given to us was the street. While discussions in the Convention Centre was reflecting only the  voices and concerns of business and government representatives, we spent our time on the streets of Hong Kong together with the people of Hong Kong as well as people from all over the world and we created a distinctive voice that questioned the myth imposed by WTO.

It was not only the voices of Korean peasants. It was the voices of the landless agri-workers, of the workers trying to protect public services, of the ecologists protesting against the destruction of the environment and the mother nature, of the indigenous community claming back the control over natural resources, and of migrant workers fighting for labour rights. It is also the voice of feminists protecting women's rights and people in the Americas protesting against Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.

However, the WTO and the neo-liberal global system always try to conceal these voices of the people and the true face of WTO. Hong Kong's ministerial was no exception. The WTO and the Hong Kong government attempted to hide the true face of neo-liberal globalisation and voices against it behind the police line. We tried to deliver our messages directly to the government delegates from all countries. In the attempt to go closer to the Convention Centre, we jumped into freezing cold water of Victoria harbour, and marched painfully but proudly to the Convention Centre by bowing every three steps. However, the WTO and Hong Kong Police continuously tried to conceal and control our actions, voices and rights to protest within the police line. Worse still, the Hong Kong government not only stopped our voice from being heard but also arrested and imprisoned more than a thousand people from all over the world and finally charged 14 workers and peasants.

>From now on, we 12 WTO protestors arrested and charged by the Hong Kong authority will start an indefinite hunger strike. We want to continue our unfinished struggle against the WTO and struggle for a world filled with peace and justice. We want to make sure that the scream of the people from the world and protests by the Hong Kong 14 were legitimate. We would like to share our struggle with people of the world. In particular, we want to be hand in hand with the citizens of Hong Kong in this continuing struggle. We will overcome the crisis of humanity and people's rights. And at the end of our struggle we will begin a new world of justice. We will stand firm at the centre of this historical march of the people.

We want to go back home. We are workers labouring in the factories and peasants farming with land and nature. At home, our family, friends, and colleagues are waiting for us to come back. The lunar New Year day is just around the corner. It is the biggest celebration of the year in many Asian countries, just as it is in Hong Kong. We want to be where we build our lives with our loved ones. We want to be with our family and friends on that day. We would like to celebrate our victory over the WTO on the lunar New Year, which will start a genuine new year for the people of the world. 

Our struggle against the WTO is not over but to be won by the people of the world.

January 5, 2006
12 WTO Protestors Charged

State-corporate propaganda sinks to new depths in attempt to demonize anti-WTO actions

My goodness, I'd mentioned something about hysteria in the media building up to the anti-WTO protests in December... but the great folks at InMedia HK and Roland Soong of EastSouthWestNorth have just brought up something even more scandalous. It seems that the Sing Tao newspaper has printed this picture...

...alongside sob-stories about the poor police getting beaten by demonstrators. Anyway, the specific caption to this picture suggests that sling-shots with iron-balls were used at the HK anti-WTO protests, thus proving that the demonstrators were brutal and calculating in their attacks on police.

The problem is that I don't remember seeing anyone dressed like that during that week in December! Neither did anyone else I spoke to... perhaps this is because, as Roland points out, the picture was not taken in Hong Kong in December 2005, but in Caracas, Venezuela in 2004! You can even find a copy of this picture on Roland's page from that time, when he reported on demonstrations in Venezuela... also, to confirm things, here is an article from 2004 from the great website Venezuelanalysis.com, featuring the same picture.

So, the Hong Kong media is fabricating evidence in an attempt to deceive the public, create false sympathy for the police and the people they were protecting in the Convention Center, and demonize anti-WTO actions: all right at the time when the cases of 14 people arrested at the anti-WTO actions are being heard in court?

Aside from proving that the police and their media organs are lying, manipulative, not to mention violent sacks of shit, what does this episode prove? As a friend from InMedia told me, it highlights that we need to be more proactive in monitoring and calling out the mainstream media on this kind and other forms of propaganda, or "our society will be eroded and ruined completely." Definitely. And this episode aptly prove that it's not just outright state control or power that affects media freedom, which is where many liberals draw the line, but corporate globalization and its institutions too.

For a decent working model of a group that tries to hold corporate media accountable, I'd refer everyone to Media Lens in the UK and also to En Camino in North America.

My other thought immediately was that people have been jailed, sacked, even taken before various legislatures for much, much less... remember the so-called saga of the "sexed-up" intelligence report from Britain? Maybe we should take this picture, a much more damning and obvious manipulation, very personally and never let Sing Tao forget its actions. Especially when the next few years in the lives of 14 people are hanging in the balance at the moment...

Incidentally, the English-language corporate toilet roll, sorry, newspaper The Standard is owned by the same group as Sing Tao. You might remember I'd blogged earlier about their own scare-tactics and active campaign against anti-WTO protests here and here and here... please visit the websites of these organs and let them know what you think!!

The month that was two years long

It's said that this January is a month containing two years- the Western new year at the beginning and Lunar new year at the end.

Well, for us here in Hong Kong, recent times have really felt like a month that is two years long. The actions by the end of the anti-WTO week in December had become so heated, long, exhausting, and dramatic as to render things like writing on blogs somewhat inane. Months, though it now feels like years ago, as the WTO meeting here came closer and closer to its date, I was planning on doing daily reports, updates, bulletins, urgent appeals etc. etc...

Nothing came of all of this, of course, as meetings, plannings, actions, and events took up most of my time, and my continuing mental inability to process what happened that week left me at the best of times in a vegetative state in front of any computer screen with sassy blank pages daring me to respond to the questions that kept coming from people about what the hell was happening here.

Well, a couple of weeks later and here I am back floating in the blog pond. I figured that my perceived inanity of blogs was one thing. But going back to my job and service-industry wage slavery after the week of anti-WTO actions was on a completely new level of mundane, mindless, vacuuous, asinine drudgery. (I don't think I've ever mentioned what I do for money, but this wonderful treatise on class analysis sort of sums it up). I reasoned that if economic need could compel me to go back to that shit, I had to find some way to compel myself to return to the comparatively liberatory paradise of webspace.

So, here I am, gingerly testing the water again. Among other things, I'll try and keep everyone updated on the progress my own feeble mind is making with understanding all the aspects of what happened in Hong Kong between December 11 and December 18... of course, along with the usual posts on things going on in this region and others.

Well, an important note to end on is that despite my tone in the above paragraphs, the struggle hasn't really ended over here. I don't even mean that in some wishy-washy rhetorical way. The legal cases of the 14 people-- 11 Korean farmers and unionists, 1 Taiwanese student, 1 Japanese anti-poverty activist, and 1 mainland Chinese bystander-- who have been charged by the HK government as a result of their anti-WTO activities seem to be dragging out to epic proportions. Their next hearing, and a crucially important one, will be held on January 11th at the Kwun Tong District Court, so if it's at all possible please try to go and support our troops!

Anyway, happy new years to all of you out there. And there are two of them this time, so let's make them count.