The following is a message from my sponsors/wards and masters/victims. Sometimes those who seem in the lead turn out to be lagging behind many a lap in them damn (I mean our long longings filled start to fit a finish on) races.
 
Date:   Mon, 6 Dec 1999 13:01:41 -0500 (EST)  From:   "Amanaka'a Amazon Network"  http://amanakaa.org/ via grain.org (genetic resources...) <elist@amanakaa.org>Subject:  Urgent request from Indigenous Peoples' Caucus in Seattle      To: amazon-news@envirolink.org      Reply To:   elist@amanakaa.org     Begin Forwarded Message --------Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 16:36:03 +0800     ________________________________________________________
TITLE: Indigenous Peoples' Seattle Declaration            AUTHOR: Indigenous Peoples' Caucus at the WTO Third MinisterialConference (Seattle, 30 December - 3 November 1999)        DATE: 1 December 1999                NOTE: If you support the proposals of the Indigenous Peoples' Caucus inSeattle, kindly email your name and address to tebtebba@skyinet.netorien@igc.apc.org as soon as possible.

We, the Indigenous Peoples from various regions of the world, have come to express our great concern over how the World Trade Organization is destroying Mother Earth and the cultural and biological diversity of which we are a part.                      Trade liberalization and export-oriented development, which are the overriding principles and policies pushed by the WTO, are creating the most adverse impacts on the lives of Indigenous Peoples.  Our inherent right to self-determination, our sovereignty as nations, and treaties and other constructive agreements which Indigenous nations and Peoples have negotiated with other nation-states, are undermined by most of the WTO Agreements.  The disproportionate impact of these Agreements on our communities, whether through environmental degradation or the militarization and violence that often accompanies development projects, is serious and therefore should be addressed immediately.         The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA), which promotes export competition and import liberalization, has allowed the entry of cheap agriculturalproducts into our communities.  It is causing the destruction ofecologically rational and sustainable agricultural practices of Indigenous Peoples.        Small-scale farm production is giving way to commercial cash-cropplantations further concentrating ancestral lands into the hands of fewagri-corporations and landlords.  This has led to the dislocation of scores of people from our communities who then migrate to nearby cities and becomethe urban homeless and jobless.      Food security and the production of traditional food crops have beenseriously compromised.  Incidents of diabetes, cancers, and hypertensionhave significantly increased among indigenous Peoples because of thescarcity of traditional foods and the dumping of junk food into ourcommunities.                 The WTO Forests Products Agreement promotes free trade in forest products.By eliminating developed country tariffs on wood products by the year 2000,and developing country tariffs by 2003, the Agreement will result in thedeforestation of many of the world's ecosystems in which Indigenous Peoples live.           Mining laws in many countries are being changed to allow free entry offoreign mining corporations, to enable them to buy and own mineral lands,and to freely displace Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral territories.These large-scale commercial mining and oil extraction activities continue to degrade our lands and fragile ecosystems, and pollute the soil, water,and air in our communities.             The appropriation of our lands and resources and the aggressive promotion ofconsumerist and individualistic Western culture continue to destroy traditional lifestyles and cultures.  The result is not only environmentaldegradation but also ill health, alienation, and high levels of stressmanifested in high rates of alcoholism and suicides.          The theft and patenting of our biogenetic resources is facilitated by theTRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) of the WTO.Some plants which Indigenous Peoples have discovered, cultivated, and used for food, medicine, and for sacred rituals are already patented in theUnited States, Japan, and Europe.  A few examples of these are ayahuasca, quinoa, and sangre de drago in forests of South America; kava in thePacific; turmeric and bitter melon in Asia.  Our access and control over ourbiological diversity and control over our traditional knowledge and intellectual heritage are threatened by the TRIPs Agreement.       Article 27.3b of the TRIPs Agreement allows the patenting of life-forms and makes an artificial distinction between plants, animals, and micro-organisms.  The distinction between "essentially biological" and"non-biological" and "microbiological" processes is also erroneous.  As far as we are concerned all these are life-forms and life-creating processes which are sacred and which should not become the subject of private property ownership. Finally, the liberalization of investments and the service sectors, which ispushed by the General Agreement of Services (GATS), reinforces the domination and monopoly control of foreign corporations over strategic partsof the economy.  The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund imposeconditionalities of liberalization, deregulation and privatization oncountries caught in the debt trap.  These conditionalities are reinforcedfurther by the WTO. In light of the adverse impacts and consequences of the WTO Agreements identified above, we, Indigenous Peoples present the following demands:We urgently call for a social and environmental justice analysis which willlook into the Agreements' cumulative effects on Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples should be equal participants in establishing the criteria and indicators for these analyses so that they take into considerationspiritual as well as cultural aspects.            A review of the Agreements should be done to address all of the inequitiesand imbalances which adversely affect Indigenous Peoples. The proposals toaddress some of these are as follows;           (1)     For the Agreement on Agriculture     a.      It should not include in its coverage small-scale farmers who are mainlyengaged in production for domestic use and sale in the local markets.        b.      It should ensure the recognition and protection of rights of IndigenousPeoples to their territories and their resources, as well as their rights tocontinue practicing their indigenous sustainable agriculture and resourcemanagement practices and traditional livelihoods.       c.      It should ensure the food security and the capacity of Indigenous Peoplesto produce, consume and trade their traditional foods.                 (2)     With regard to the liberalization of services and investments werecommend the following:       a.      It must stop unsustainable mining, commercial planting of monocrops, damconstruction, oil exploration, land conversion to golf clubs, logging,  andother activities which destroy  Indigenous Peoples' lands and violate therights of indigenous peoples' to their territories and resources.       b.      The right of Indigenous Peoples to their traditional lifestyles, culturalnorms and values should likewise be recognized and protected.      c.      The liberalization of services, especially in the areas of health, shouldnot be allowed if it will prevent Indigenous Peoples from having access tofree, culturally appropriate as well as quality health services.      d.      The liberalization of finance services which makes the world a globalcasino should be regulated.         (3)     On the TRIPs Agreement, the proposals are as follows:      a.      Article 27.3b should be amended to categorically disallow the patentingof life-forms.  It should clearly prohibit the patenting of micro-organisms,plants, animals, including all their parts, whether they are genes, genesequences, cells, cell lines,  proteins, or seeds.     b.      It should also prohibit the patenting of natural processes, whether theseare biological or microbiological, involving the use of plants, animals andmicro-organisms and their parts in producing variations of plants, animalsand micro-organisms.       c.      It should ensure the exploration and development of alternative forms ofprotection outside of the dominant western intellectual property rightsregime.  Such alternatives must protect the knowledge and innovations andpractices in agriculture, health care, and conservation of biodiversity, andshould build upon indigenous methods and customary laws protectingknowledge, heritage and biological resources.      d.     It should ensure that the protection offered to indigenous andtraditional knowledge, innovation and practices is consistent with theConvention on Biological Diversity (i.e., Articles 8j, 10c, 17.2, and 18.4)and the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources.        e.      It should allow for the right of Indigenous Peoples and farmers tocontinue their traditional practices of saving, sharing and exchangingseeds, and cultivating, harvesting and using medicinal plants.         f.      It should prohibit scientific researchers and corporations fromappropriating and patenting indigenous seeds, medicinal plants, and relatedknowledge about these life-forms.  The principles of prior informed consentand right of veto by Indigenous Peoples should be respected.                    If the earlier proposals cannot be ensured, we call for the removal of the Agreement on Agriculture, the Forest Products Agreements and the TRIPsAgreement from the WTO.          We call on the member-states of the WTO not to allow for another roundwhilst the review and rectification of the implementation of existingagreements has not been done. We reject the proposals for an investment treaty, competition, accelerated industrial tariffs,  governmentprocurement, and the creation of a working group on biotechnology.             We urge the WTO to reform itself to become democratic, transparent and accountable. If it fails to do this we call for the abolition of the WTO.   We urge the member nation-states of the WTO to endorse the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the current text of the UN Declaration on the Rightsof Indigenous Peoples and the ratification of ILO Convention l69.             We call on the peoples' organizations and NGOs  to support this "IndigenousPeoples' Seattle Declaration" and to promote it among their members.     We believe that the whole philosophy underpinning the WTO Agreements and theprinciples and policies it promotes contradict our core values, spiritualityand worldviews, as well as our concepts and practices of development, tradeand environmental protection.  Therefore, we challenge the WTO to redefine its principles and practices toward a "sustainable communities" paradigm,and to recognize and allow for the continuation of other worldviews andmodels of development.               Indigenous peoples, undoubtedly, are the ones most adversely affected byglobalization and by the WTO Agreements. However, we believe that it is alsous who can offer viable alternatives to the dominant economic growth,export-oriented development model. Our sustainable lifestyles and cultures, traditional knowledge, cosmologies, spirituality, values of collectivity,reciprocity, respect and reverence for Mother Earth, are crucial in thesearch for a transformed society where justice, equity, and sustainabilitywill prevail.            Statement by the Indigenous Peoples' Caucus convened and sponsored by the Indigenous Environmental Network USA/CANADA, Seventh Generation Fund USA, International Indian Treaty Council, Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism, the Abya Yala Fund, and TEBTEBBA (Indigenous Peoples'  Network for Policy Research and Education), 1 December 1999, Seattle, Washington, USA.              Other indigenous peoples' organizations, NGOs and individuals who wish to sign on to this statement, send email to ien@igc.org or tebtebba@skyinet.net.
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https://members.tripod.com/poetpiet:The alphabetical index with dates and sizes for 122 files, a third of which are written by ghosted (yes, unfortunately deceased dead) guests. They amount to 10Mb of which another third are gifs). The link above is my simplest siteguide-gait-navigaidgoad. Welcome home.
PS: if you like this particular (background/text colour combo/texture and) make up, go to metafilter.com, a very interactive log (which once found I happened to recognize instantly, at least colourwize ((as my own latest creation or ride on somebody's psychic generosity maybe))) where anybody may post (I think) and all can comment (becoming a number). Caution though, it keeps crashing my apportioning pet Netscape.  I now favor this colourconstellation:******* ****** ********** ********* ******** ******* **and this is how it looks in Arial Black 10 point, scuse me, 12:
"Study without action is futile - action without study is fatal."
           AAUW                    American Association of University Women

Post Seattle PS from an anarchist library list-digest: It was funny watching how the media presented the Battle of Seattle ("violent protests" was the mantra), and while a McDonald's and a Starbucks had their windows broken, the truth was that 99% of the participants destroyed no property and took great pains to treat the city of Seattle with endearing respect. Seattle is, after all, the only city in the history of this country to have a general strike (the entire town refused to show up for work back in 1919).   Mark it down, this last great, important date of the 20th century -- November 30, 1999 -- The Battle of Seattle, the day the people got tired of having to work a second job while fighting off the collection agents and decided it was time the pie was shared with the people who baked it.        Yours,   Michael Moore        http://www.michaelmoore.com       P.S.  We're still looking for someone to run our web site. Someone who can write, edit, and make the thing look like a million rubles It's a full time job located in our New York City office. We need someone who, like us, sees all the subversive, crazy potential of the Internet.   E-mail us at dogfilms@aol.com.                                      Your eyeful o fool(s)filling Piet comments: scuse me mister Moore (who mists less and all the more pitifully little if he doesn't), switch, lay and slide into to preferably homemade rrubballs; check my intro_to_currency_issues.htm  please.
 
 This file was briefly the opening one temporarily displacing the my index. It began: I, if not suspend, at least postpone your reaching (links at the bottom of this file for) it by interposing this here crosspost.