The New York Times

Monday, December 13, 1999

World Trade Group Picking Up the Pieces From Seattle

By ELIZABETH OLSON

GENEVA -- Struggling to recover from the trade conference in Seattle that collapsed in failure earlier this month, the World Trade Organization plans a special meeting Friday to decide how to proceed.

A spokesman for the 135-nation group that makes the rules for international commerce said that the main purpose of the meeting of its general council would be to regain momentum for resolving some disputes that had foiled the ministerial conference in Seattle, leaving delegates dispirited and angry.

The conference had been intended as a forum for delegates to agree on an agenda for lowering some of the remaining barriers to freer world trade, through negotiations to take place during the next few years.

Thousands of protesters disrupted the conference in scenes reminiscent of the late 1960s mass action against American involvement in the Vietnam War. They denounced the WTO as a secretive, probusiness group that ignores environmental protection and labor rights in the name of corporate profits.

Protesters blocked access to the conference sites on the first day and some rampaged through downtown Seattle; more than 500 were arrested by riot police officers, who have been accused of responding with violent tactics of their own.

The conference ended after delegates could not even agree on whether to discuss issues that have divided them, most notably agricultural subsidies and labor rights in developing countries.

In the week since WTO delegates returned to their Geneva headquarters, many remain shocked by the events in Seattle. Some staff members at the ordinarily quiet building that houses the organization say they have been barraged by hate mail and virus-laced e-mail.

"There is certainly a feeling of disappointment," said Tunisia's envoy, Kamel Morjane, in a comment typical of the negotiators who have returned.

While most envoys refrained from finger-pointing in public, there was no hesitance to do so in Brussels, where the European Union trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy, attributed the breakdown in Seattle to American presidential-campaign politics, and said he doubted that a new round of negotiations could get under way until after the election next November.

The WTO's director general, Mike Moore, sounding a rare hopeful note, said he wanted to get going with efforts to open a new round of trade talks. "The longer we delay launching the negotiations," he said, "the more the poorest among us lose."

Others have expressed pessimism whether the organization can even decide what should happen next.

"There is a confusion here," said Mexico's envoy, Alejandro de la Pena. "It is not at all clear how we are going to follow up.

"But we all know this is not the end. It's not like this is the first time we have found ourselves in a situation like this," he said, alluding to the suspension of negotiations during the previous Uruguay trade round in 1988 and 1990.