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Secret World
By John Vidal
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Credit:
Mike Nelson/AFP
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Seattle
Four tables, each 30 yards long. More than 100 ministers each sit opposite a diplomat or civil servant. A few observers line two walls. It is standing room only in Hall 6B. Of those present, 90 percent are middle-aged men in dark suits. The women wear bright scarves. The only signs of male sartorial individuality are one hat, one bow tie, one pair of dark glasses, one African robe and one pink waistcoat.
The working party of the World Trade Organization's "Singapore Group and Other Issues" is forbidden territory to the 3,000 journalists in Seattle and the non-governmental organizations baying for information about the talks. But to the thousands who are in Seattle to express their misgivings about the WTO, and who have been arrested for marching outside the convention center in pursuit of accountability and open negotiations, it is like the far side of the moon.
I have access to the talks because, in its incompetence, the WTO has issued me the wrong accreditation. Instead of a green press card they have given me a nice blue delegate one. In short, I am a sort of least developed country. Should anyone ask, I represent either San Serife, a country in the Indian Ocean with infinitely changing geographical position or, preferably, any one of the 30 countries who are WTO members but who are too poor to send even one delegate to the talks.
A version of this article originally appeared in the London Guardian.
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In These Times ©
1999
Vol. 24, No. 3 |