The drama of recent world terrorism threatens to disrupt several key international meetings this autumn that were slated to affect food sector politics.
The most significant is speculation that a planned World Trade Organization meeting in November to launch a new round of trade negotiations may be postponed.
It was planned for Nov. 9-13 in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, an Islamic quasi-monarchy not far from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Centre and Washington’s Pentagon, there is a strong possibility of American retaliation against Afghanistan and the region. President George W. Bush has vowed to wage war against terrorism and many expect the U.S. to target the Islamic Middle East.
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In mid-September, world leaders were reportedly discussing whether to cancel or to move the meeting of 170 WTO member countries.
Canadian farm leaders and politicians, who have been banking on a Qatar WTO meeting and the launch of a new trade negotiation aimed at reducing price-depressing farm subsidies and opening markets, were cautious last week in their view of whether the meeting should be cancelled or moved.
There have been strong arguments that this fall is the last best chance to launch a new trade negotiation for at least several years.
“My advice to the minister and the government would be that we need a launch as soon as possible and it must be in a forum in which people feel secure,” said Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen.
Ontario soybean producer Liam McCreary, president of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, said it is likely the WTO meeting will be postponed.
“We need the Americans to be engaged and they will be distracted,” he said in an interview. “The whole world is on hold until the Americans come to grips with what has happened and what they will do about it.”
Progressive Conservative agriculture critic Rick Borotsik from Brandon said the federal government should suggest the WTO meeting be moved from Qatar. However, with less than two months to plan a move, it would be a logistical nightmare.
“I just don’t think it should be held in the Middle East,” he said. “I know I won’t be there.”
Last week, the federal government did not officially acknowledge that discussions were under way about the future of the WTO conference.
In fact, prime minister Jean Chrétien made it clear he thinks the international meetings should go on as planned, including in the Middle East. Otherwise, the terrorists will appear to have won by disrupting the world.
He said he plans to attend a meeting of francophone nations in Beirut, Lebanon, in October as planned. “Nobody will force me on the ground,” he told a news conference Sept. 13.
The irony of concern about the safety of Qatar is that the WTO chose it in part to deal with fears that a world trade meeting in an easily accessible and democratic country would attract anti-globalization demonstrations like those that marred the last WTO meeting in Seattle, Wash., in 1999. As well, protesters created havoc at a meeting of world leaders in Genoa, Italy in July and for European leaders in Sweden in June.
Qatar was seen as an inaccessible site where Islamic laws and police would tolerate little public opposition.
Meanwhile, the violence and destruction witnessed in Genoa in July have prompted the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to agree to an Italian government request that a planned November FAO meeting be moved out of Rome for fear of demonstrators and destruction. FAO headquarters, where the conference was planned, is in the heart of ancient Rome, near delicate ruins.
The FAO has agreed to the move, although it insists the meeting will be in Italy.
