Feb 9, 1998

CARIBBEAN: 'ECONOMIC SOVEREIGNTY' A THING OF THE PAST?

Port of Spain, Feb 5(IPS/Wesley Gibbings) -- The process of globalisation is hardly politically neutral nor will it eventually benefit small developing nations -- at least that is how some academics in the region feel.

And this view has recently found eloquent expression through the voice of American Jesuit priest Fr Vincent Connolly, who lectures at St Michaels Theological Centre on the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies in Jamaica.

Speaking at a seminar on trade in Trinidad this week, Connolly said he was amazed at the "benevolence" extended to the subject among Caribbean policy makers and suggested that a second look at the ethical under-currents of the concept be examined.  

He feels that the promotion of a more global approach to trade and commerce is a direct response by the Western World to "the emergence of low-cost producers in South-East Asia."  

The rules being put in place to facilitate freer trade in the world all point to a strategy aimed at increasing returns by lowering wages and increasing efficiency. "The main attributes (of these rules) are lower wages, lower interest rates and weaker trade unions," he says.  

This, he argues, has the potential to "worsen the abyss between rich and poor." He adds that under such conditions notions of "economic sovereignty" are "a thing of the past."  

Political economist, Dr Neville Duncan, does not go as far, but he says he believes developing countries are not attempting to assert their views on free trade within the framework of "fair trade" practices.

Connolly agrees, and says that under a rules-based scenario such as that created by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), there is the need for both "fair rules" and "strong arbiters."  

The concept of fair trade should have primacy in the discussions of the Caribbean on the shaping of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), negotiations for which begin in Chile among 34 countries in April, says Duncan.

"The current international system is neither free nor fair," he contends, "but it is probably freer and fairer than it ever was."  

Successive negotiations on fair trading practices in the world, inclusive of the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations had "fallen short of the expectations of the South," he adds. "While on one hand we talk free trade, small and developing countries come up against notions which deny free trade."  

Duncan argues that there are several "disguised protectionist measures parading as environmental concerns" and that "although trade is ostensibly free there are a number of obstacles."  

There is now "a certain resistance to the global process" among developing countries as they increasingly recognise sinister motives on the part of the industrialised world, says Connolly.  

But Duncan says the sceptics need to push the argument further and develop "a new set of ideas" that embrace the notion of fair trade.  

The developing world has contributed "considerably" to the growth in world trade and they should insist that issues of fair trade be "put on a co-equal footing as free trade," says Duncan.  

There are few examples when the process of globalisation does not mean "the transfer of resources and profits from poor countries to rich ones," he adds.  

It all boils down to a growing sensitivity of Western corporations to "new competitors" and the globalisation process is being put in place to put a damper on their major concerns, adds Connolly.  

Social worker Shirley Ann Hussen, in response to Connolly's concerns at the Trinidad seminar suggested that the Caribbean region is used to the kind of exploitation being suggested.  

"But this is the time when we will have some space to manoeuvre while the developed world is concerned about globalisation," she says. "These things are the concerns of Euro-America and Europe ... they are not our concerns, let them think about globalisation while we get our act together. We have known globalisation all through our history."

Not so, says Connolly. It would be a mistake to fall into complacency on an issue in which so much is at stake. "We should not view it as something benign."