[mobglob-discuss] Our World Is Not For Sale [ brief ]

[Gordon Flett]

Our World Is Not For Sale [ brief ]

We have to call for a GATS moratorium and should not allow any new 
agreements to be signed in Cancun.

There is not much time left as multinational corporations push the WTO
to finalize the expanded GATS round by the end of 2004. GATS will then
fully be implemented by January 2005 and as mentioned before, GATS is
irreversible.

We need GATS-free zones on universities, churches and local community 
centres. We need to go to our governments pass resolutions against 
GATS.  We need to write letters to our governments and to our
newspapers. We need ironclad guarantees from our governments that no
future GATS negotiations would prevent them from providing good public
services to their citizens.

We must seek to create a global democracy in which governments would
serve their citizens and honour their commitments on human rights and
ecological stewardship. We must not sit silently by and allow these
rights to be traded away." (Maude Barlow)

Already in late 1999 Charlene Barshefsky, the top US trade negotiator, 
hinted that the single greatest threat to globalization is 'the absence
of public support.' Her concerns are justified. There is a growing
worldwide movement campaigning against GATS. It is a movement which is
becoming stronger by the day. We have to urge our governments to act in
the interests of their people and to construct a system that will put
humans back in control at the centre of economic activity.

Our world is NOT for sale!!

Excerpted from the article "Our World Is Not For Sale" by Annette Groth
See here for the rest of the article: http://www.arena.org.nz/

© Annette Groth, June 2003

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Simple Tips For A  Local Campaign Against  GATS

What you can do?

Talk with your workmates and fellow unionists about the threat of GATS

Talk to your students about GATS - get them to write essays and to do
study projects on GATS

Talk to your friends and family about GATS

Talk to your neighbours about GATS

Call local meetings about GATS.

Call national meetings about GATS

Write letters to local and national newspapers about GATS

Ring talkback radio stations and  discuss GATS.

Ring every union;  environmental, feminist, anti-war, human rights, 
peace and justice group you know and ask them what they know and/or are
doing about GATS

Email every person and group you know and send them information on GATS.

Write to progressive and alternative media sites about GATS.

Lobby and educate your local representatives and City/Regional
Councillors about GATS

Write to the elected representatives in your country  i.e.  Prime
Minister, and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Education,
Health, State Services, Broadcasting about GATS

If in America you can find  your elected reps here: 
http://www.moveon.org/common/cong-lookup.html

Talk to everyone you meet and get them to join the campaign against GATS

Call local meetings and  attend local body meetings -  take along a few 
friends and ask local body representatives what they know and/or are
doing about GATS.

Inform yourself and others further about GATS.

Keep it simple; remind yourself and others that your local body and your 
national governments are merely "holograms " - that participatory
democracy is an illusion.  Don't waste too much time lobbying
representatives- educating them is about all that can be sensibly
achieved but spend plenty of time building and linking up with other
participatory democracy movement at the grass roots level.

Other information on GATS can be found at:  http://www.aftinet.org.au 
http://www.gatswatch.org , http://www.wdm.org.uk
http://www.canadians.org , http://www.world-psi.org 
http://www.arena.org.nz/gatsact.htm

You can download a copy of GATS from here:  
http://www.arena.org.nz/GATSversion1.pdf

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