The Unfair Games

international | miscellaneous | press release

Thursday September 11, 2003 02:56

by Ian McDonald - Comhlamh/ Trade Justice Ireland

ian at theplateau dot com

A Trade Justice Ireland event

In solidarity with the struggles of devleoping countries at this week's WTO ministerial in Cancun, members of the the Trade Justice Ireland Coallition will host a series of events to demonstrate the how absurdly unfair the rules of international trade would be if applied to sport.

“2003 UNFAIR GAMES” – SOUTH KING STREET, THURSDAY 11th SEPTEMBER

UNFAIR GAMES TO HIGHLIGHT UNFAIR TRADE RULES

Trade Justice Ireland are hosting the ‘2003 Unfair Games’ outside the Oxfam shop in Dublin’s South King Street on Thursday evening at 6.00 p.m. The games coincide with the latest round of World Trade Organisation (W.T.O.) talks taking place in Cancun, Mexico this week. The purpose of the games are to publicly highlight the enormous disadvantages that poorer countries face in negotiating for just terms of trade and to build up awareness among Irish people of the issues involved. The rules of the games will reflect the unfair rules and processes of the WTO.

Comhlamh will present “Heads-I-Win-Tails-You-Lose Football”, with teams representing rich countries and poor countries matched against each other. If the “Poor Countries” defenders attempt to protect their goal, the “Rich Countries” team will protest vehemently against blatant “protectionism” and can demand that they be sent off. But whenever the “Poor Countries” team come close to scoring, the “Rich Countries” can add defenders and narrow the goalposts!

Oxfam Ireland and Trocaire will highlight the transparency deficit within the WTO with a game of “Pin the Tail on the Unfair Trade Donkey”. Teams representing rich and poor countries will compete to win the prizes of trade but, while the “poor” are blindfolded, the “rich” team can wear blindfolds made of clingfilm. The WTO claims that its decision-making processes are transparent, but in reality many important meetings take place behind closed doors and the poor are left in the dark.

The Debt and Development Coalition will hold a relay race between “rich” and “poor” teams to illustrate the crippling burden of debt faced by poor countries already struggling against unfair trade rules. The “poor” team will be handicapped with heavy loads to symbolise the impact of the international institutions’ policies on poor countries. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank Institutions cripple the health and nutrition of Southern Countries by increasing percentage rates while at the same time the World Trade Organisation keeps the price of commodity products, like coffee, at an all time low.

ATTAC and the Tobin Tax Initiative will transform the WTO Dispute Resolution Mechanism into “The WTO Court Tug of War” game. A strong five-person team will represent the legal expertise of a rich country, while one, small, individual will represent a poor country defending itself in the WTO Court. A “bewigged judge from the WTO” will endlessly badger the poor country team for lack of attention to “due legal process”. He will also try to prevent the audience watching the proceedings, to reflect how the WTO Disputes Mechanism takes place in secret, with no opportunity for public scrutiny. No prizes for guessing who the judge will rule in favour of…

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Comments (12 of 12)

Unfair?

by >>>>>Seainín

Thu Sep 11, 2003 03:56

The poor countries of the world remain poor mainly because of their sick mediaeval political cultures. These countries receive billions of dollars in aid from richer countries every year but you might as well throw your money in the sea for all the good it does.

The fact is that only Europe and the US experienced the Enlightenment of the 18th century. The rest of the world lives in feudal darkness.

Certain people try to make it appear that the developed nations conspired to make trade unfair for the poorer countries. Untrue, since we'd like NOT to have to bail them out with aid money every year. The present tariffs are designed to prevent western manufacturers going out of business by being flooded with cheap imports from poorer countries with lower wage structures. This is a reasonable thing for any coutry to do, protect it's own people's jobs.

Similarly, farmers are essential to provide us with the food we eat, their produce must be subsidised to some extent to give them an incentive to actually produce the food we put in our mouths.

Gobshite

by kokomero

Thu Sep 11, 2003 10:13

A good example of "aid" is the state-of-the-art telephone exchange equipment provided by Siemens to the Ethiopian government during the famine there during the 1980s. The Ethopian government was actually given money by the Germans on condition that it was spent on equipment manufactured in Germany. The final insult was that at the time there was only a requirement for a few hundred lines in Addis Abbaba and the equipment they bought could handle 10000 simultaneous calls!

Re: Seanin - For every $1 that goes in $5 comes back out agian.

by Anonymous

Thu Sep 11, 2003 11:10

Seanin,

For every $1 of aid that goes into the developing world, $5 comes back out again in "interest" repayments (never mind the capital sum).

The developed world is making a fortune out of the developing world, rather than giving it "aid" as you see it.

Survival of the fittest. Doesn't take a genius to work it out Seanin.

Read a few books.

Regards.

Bullshit, Anonymous

by >>>>>Seáinín

Thu Sep 11, 2003 11:33

If you look at thetrade figures for the EU and America, you will see that the vast, vast bulk of our trade is aming ourselves. The trade with third world countries barely matters. So, we're not making our fortune out of poorer countries.

BTW, if you looked at the cover of yestersay's UK Indepedent, you would see it says that we get $2 back for every $1 in aid.

If you read real books instead of swallowing wholesale the crap Noam Chumpski feeds the gullible, you would be sensible like me.

Unfair Games

by anon

Thu Sep 11, 2003 12:39

I think the Games are a great idea - hope the Thursday night shoppers take notice! You can't really ignore how unfair Trade is. It's time people thought a bit more about how we are all inter-connected, and how what we do actually impacts on others around the world.
Fair Trade not Free Trade!!

Seanin - Does the disaster of humanity concern you at all??

Thu Sep 11, 2003 13:45

Seanin,

I grossly dispute the figure of $2 coming to us for every $1 we give to them. It is much closer to $5.

But even taking the 2 to 1 figure - does this surely not explain your opening comment above "These countries receive billions of dollars in aid from richer countries every year but you might as well throw your money in the sea for all the good it does."

This money does do a lot of good, and millions more every year would die without it - but it looks like it is doing no good as millions continue to die because of the west's exploitation of the developing world through things such as interest payments (for every $1 that goes in $2 comes back) - there are loads of more ways the west exploits such as through terms of trade, drug patent embargo's, arms sales etc.

On a personal level Seanin, does it concern you at all that:-

70% of the world's population are living in poverty (this includes many in the "developed" world - particularly in the USA & Ireland)

50% are living in malnourishment.

and millions upon millions are dying every year from chronic malnourishment, starvation, Aids, diahorea, malaria etc. etc. and life expectancy for many countries is abut 45.

You can argue the percentages but its give or take a few here or there.

And we are all indirectly, and sometimes directly implicit in this continuous disaster of humanity.

Does this concern you at all?

Regards.

Yes it bothers me a little

by Seáinín

Fri Sep 12, 2003 12:28

Not much but a little.

Look, we can blame tariffs or farm subsidies but the truth is that the only hope for developing countries is to clean up their lousy political systems. People starve because of misrule and corruption.

I'm sick of having my tax money going to some lousy corrupt regime in Africa, where hardly a penny get's to the people who need it.

so,..

by ..

Fri Sep 12, 2003 13:46

You don't mind giving your tax money to Western Lousey corrupt regimes?

Not so much

Sat Sep 13, 2003 02:42

I don't mind paying tax to our government, at least I get something back for that. One good thing I get for my taxes is a police force, to protect me from anarchy.

"Them"

Sat Sep 13, 2003 12:27

I am glad to see it bothers you, at least a little, Seanin.

It is only by pure fluke that we are born where we are born - on another day, it could have been you or I who is "them".

Regards.

Scary...

by The Insider

Sat Sep 13, 2003 20:38

"The fact is that only Europe and the US experienced the Enlightenment of the 18th century. The rest of the world lives in feudal darkness. "

Wow, feudal darkness. God bless imperialism and colonialism, eh Seanin, white man's burden and all that.

Of course, when we look at our own experience of colonialism, things look a little different. Is that a famine I see over there? Nope, sorry, it was just economic ruin from unfair trading laws.

But hey, it's a totally different story over in Africa. Because they're black!

Insider, enough of the playground namecalling

Sun Sep 14, 2003 02:08

You're in need of some enlightenment yourself.

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