People have been saying for some time that what the movement needs are some real victories. But - it’s a strange but frequent phenomenon - when movements finally win them, they often go unnoticed. Partly, because many people have already become discouraged or have moved on to new struggles; partly because the media and dominant ideology avoid recognising popular victories as such and partly because, within the movement itself, a mistaken sort of pseudo-Marxism always immediately revises history to try and show that whatever happened HAD to happen for material, economic reasons and is somehow or another always in the interests of capital ! For example, when we arrived in Seattle in 1999, no one imagined that the negotiations could fail. Two weeks after, the US Socialist Workers Party (who had totally missed the rendezvous) and others published all kinds of subtle analyses to show that Clinton actually wanted the WTO to fail…

Already this spring, Walden Bello ( http://www.focusweb.org/content/view/881) pointed out a similar paradox: for the first time since 1999, there was no mass demo in Washington for the annual assembly of the IMF/World Bank – precisely when these two institutions are not only totally de-legitimised, but are also now themselves in financial crisis! Why? Because all the oil producing nations immediately took advantage of the rise in oil prices to pay off their debts in advance, with the result that the IMF revenues have already dropped by half and WB isn't doing much better (isn't history difficult to predict!). Also, other governments have now learned to avoid these institutions as much as possible. Chavez is even trying to organise an alternative financial institution. And why did they do these things? At least partly, because they have been “educated” or even constrained by twenty years of popular struggles worldwide, to avoid the ghastly consequences of IMF/WB neo-colonial impositions.

And now WTO too!!!

At the end of July, Pascal Lamy, director of WTO, was forced to announce that the Doha round of negotiations was dead. A new round of negotiations can probably not be envisaged for two years. Suddenly, mainstream neoliberal economic experts were talking of a possible demise of WTO in the media! For those of us who have been shouting “WTO kills, kill WTO !” with Peoples’ Global Action against WTO and “Free” Trade since 1998 it was an amazing moment. Who would have thought that we would make such huge progress in just eight years?

Of course, the media attributed the breakdown not to the movement, but to the absence of concessions on the part of the USA. But without the movement, no one would have asked them for concessions! In fact, apart from the general rise in resistance which governments have had to take into account, the key moment was at the end of June, when Lamy convoked one of WTO's undemocratic “informal” mini-ministerials to make a deal before the Council. But after two days, the Indian minister left the meeting, saying that there could be no deal if the US would not reduce the agricultural export subsidies that allow them to dump on the Indian market. The US couldn’t anger its farm lobby before the elections and the Indian government knew that their farmers had thrown out the previous government and would not hesitate to do so again, if they were further sacrificed (officially more than 100,000 farmers have committed suicide since the liberalisation began).

If there was one evident cause that has stopped WTO in its tracks, it is the Indian farmers’, the same organisations that launched PGA and the global struggle against WTO, and who have always been its strongest force. Our friend Yudhvir, of the national coordinating committee, was in Geneva to tell us. For the last three years, the farmers movements have been regularly convening huge demos all around the country. One of the latest was to welcome Pascal Lamy to Delhi a short while ago. Some 50,000 farmers occupied the streets and a strong delegation basically took over the meeting with Lamy, subjecting him to two hours of facts. In the end, Lamy’s only way out was to say that the Indian government still had the possibility of using some tariff lines to protect their agriculture! The head of WTO proposing protectionism!

All over Asia, the struggle against WTO remains a central goal. The Korean farmers told us that their aim is a million people in the streets this fall, to pull agriculture out of WTO and break the bi-lateral agreements with the US. And although getting agriculture out is obviously the first goal for all the organisations of Via Campesina, the most popular spontaneous slogan today seems to be simply “Kill WTO!” As Bello said to the demo, we should not go to sleep on this victory, but use the time gained to make sure that WTO and its policies can not rise from their ashes.

Obviously, the WTO, “free” trade and capitalism will counter-attack and objectively the future of our earth looks bleak. But, the worst is never certain and right now we can take up again the Seattle slogan: “We are winning!”