
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 2, 1994                   TAG: 9407040090
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK SCHONBECK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WITH GATT, ECONOMIC TYRANNY IN THE GUISE OF 'FREE TRADE'

THE WORLDWIDE ``free trade'' treaty known as the General Agreement on Tariffs isn't really about fair trade, but about creating a global economic tyranny.

On May 20, a secret GATT panel invalidated the United States' boycott against tuna fish caught by methods that kill dolphins on the basis that it's a ``barrier to trade.'' The United States was ordered to drop this boycott (in other words, to collude with the wholesale slaughter of dolphins) or face economic sanctions. Similar panels have ordered Thailand to stop regulating advertising of tobacco to children, and Japan to accept rice imports, which it doesn't need.

Although GATT in its current form has limited power to enforce these decisions, the recent Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations, concluded last December by more than 100 countries and the United States, could change everything. The primary objective of the Uruguay Round is to remove all nontariff barriers to trade, by allowing any member nation to challenge another country or state if its environmental, public-health, labor-rights or human-rights policies affect international trade. For example, Washington and Oregon currently do not export raw old-growth logs, because processing them locally increases employment opportunities while slowing the consumption of virgin rain forest. Japan has threatened to use the new beefed-up GATT to compel Oregon and Washington to drop this policy.

The Uruguay Round also adopted a very lax set of standards for pesticide residues in foods, and would obligate the United States to accept food imports containing three to 50 times as much DDT and other residues as our Environmental Protection Agency now allows. Somehow, the agreement's authors have missed the simple fact that ``free trade'' also implies a nation's right not to trade, whether for environmental or human-rights reasons, or because that nation is self-sufficient in the commodity in question. Considering that GATT is heavily influenced by large multinational corporations, could this be an intentional effort to create a globally centralized economy controlling virtually all economic activity concentrated in the hands of the powerful few? Surely, Adam Smith, the 18th century philosopher of free enterprise, would be disgusted by such a perversion of his fundamental precepts.

The Uruguay Round would create a World Trade Organization with overwhelming powers to enforce GATT decisions and impose sanctions against nations or municipalities that don't toe the line. The WTO would be composed of nonelected trade officials and would resolve disputes in secret, with no opportunity for public discourse. Thus our national sovereignty and states' rights would be swept aside, along with the great forests, dolphins, all endangered species, human rights and public health - all in the name of free trade. Sounds a little like George Orwell's ``1984,'' doesn't it?

We've heard precious little of GATT in the media, so it may be hard to grasp the extent of this threat to our freedom and to farming communities in Virginia and around the world. No one tells us that the new agreement could be used to prevent Virginia from giving farmers financial assistance to set up local markets, or to make a transition from tobacco into other enterprises. However, should corporate interests operating abroad perceive such programs as unfair competition against imported foods, Virginia could face such a challenge from GATT.

Full implementation of the Uruguay Round of GATT awaits ratification by the U.S. Congress and other national legislatures. Congress will debate GATT this summer, and President Clinton is currently urging speedy approval of the new agreement. He's even asked for $14 billion over the next five years to help implement the Uruguay Round, $3.5 billion of which would come out of the agriculture budget. Has anyone asked farmers if this is how they want such a large chunk of the United States Department of Agriculture budget spent?

If we value our freedom, community, economic well-being and our planet's health, we must not accept this new economic tyranny. We must not sacrifice our basic rights, farm communities, forests and fellow creatures on the altar of multinational corporate greed.

Mark Schonbeck lives in Check,| where he is an organic food gardner and a researcher in sustainable agriculture.

by CNB