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Bollywood (and for that matter Hollywood) has to learn to re-write the script for its blockbusters. Robert Zoellick and Pascal Lamy have emerged on the scene. They are both waiting to be hired as script writers. Is Michael Moore and Mahesh Bhatt listening?

The United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick is a worried man. He has been pacing up and down, shuttling between Geneva, Washington, Paris and some developing country capitals, to salvage the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which faces a rebellion from the least of the worrisome group of nations – the African and the Caribbean.

His colleague, the European Union’s Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, too has been at work. He has already sent a letter in May, offering to reduce the European subsidies on agriculture provided there is a similar reduction by North America but on the condition that the developing countries provide more market access. This is simply unjust, considering that the developing countries have already lowered their tariffs on agriculture imports and it is only the developed countries that have failed to meet the obligations of reduction in agricultural subsidies.

They are both keen to bring the developing countries into submission, to make them agree on a framework before the WTO retires waiting for the results of the American elections. To me, this is like a scene from a blockbuster Bollywood movie. The only difference being that the Don of the underworld performs the unlawful activities with sincerity and honesty. The developed countries, the Don of ‘free trade’, do it with deception, coercion, arm twisting and by misleading the developing countries in the name of growth and development.

Let me try to put together a film frame to compare the two scenarios. Pull back your seats and relax. Wait for the image to appear on the screen. The background music is gripping, building up the tension. The underworld don is pacing up and down. One can see blank-eyed gunmen in every nook and corner. In the centre of the room stands the culprit, with his hands folded and pleading: “Pardon me boss, I will never do this manipulation again. I will never betray your trust. But please spare my life.”

The Don is not moved. With a revolver in one hand and a cigar in the other, he turns back. The next we hear is a gunshot and the victim drops dead. With no remorse in his voice, the Don says: “Let me make it very clear. There is no dishonesty in this trade. The underworld operates on sincerity and honesty.”

This is a scene from a typical masala Bollywood movie. The underlying message is crystal clear: even the bad guys work with integrity and fairness. The parallel economy of the underworld thrives and grows on trust and mutual confidence. Unfortunately, the mainline economy does not believe in rust and confidence. It operates on the principles of competition, in other words exploitation.

If you don’t believe me, read the following. In what appears to be a last ditch effort to rescue the WTO after the failed Cancun Ministerial in September 2003, Robert Zoellick threw a bait at Mauritius where the G-90 group of countries have been meeting for the past few days: “We worked on visa waivers for a number of countries, and I'm pleased to say that recently, this past week, we accomplished the visa waiver for our friend Nigeria. We've moved forward with trade capacity building issues, implementation to try to build business ties”. He threw another piece of cheese at the developing countries: “For others outside sub-Saharan Africa, for example our friends in the Caribbean, other locations, again, we worked on a series of issues of preferential trade, and importantly, trade capacity building. Last year the United States spent more than $764 million dollars in trade capacity building, and that's over 100 percent for Asia, Latin America, countries of Africa, from when we took office.”

What a great benevolence. He then goes on to add, throwing some more crumbs, this time for the developing countries: “There's now good news for another possibility for developing countries. We've just launched a program with the first group of sixteen countries with a program called the Millennium Challenge Account, which is a new concept in trying to use aid to focus on countries that have strong records of governance, invest in your people and sound economic programs. We've already committed a billion dollars to this and the most recent legislation by our Congress has added another $1.5 billion dollars.”

So do what I ask you to do: “Big or small, developed or developing, G-20, G-90, my goal for all of us, is to try to make sure that each can participate in the benefits of trade, to try to have the benefits of growth, to try to deal with poverty that exists in all our countries. I don't want to create a system, as has been the case in the past, where countries in Africa, poor countries of Asia, island states, are left out of the system. So this comes back to the point of balance. We need to figure out how to limit the burden on countries but not limit the opportunities of countries.” Surely, if trade is so beneficial the developing countries and the least developing cannot be blind so as to not to realise the potential. There must be therefore something terribly wrong with the way WTO is being pushed.

Ever since the World Trade Organization (WTO) came into existence on 1 January 1995, the United States and the European Union —the Don of the developed world and the czar of the free trade - have ensured that while the rest of the world complies with the unjust rules framed at the altar of development, no one questions its own violations. When it comes to the flagrant violations in trade rules being made by the US/EU, other rich countries of the first world also close their eyes. Not because they are worried at the physical might of the world’s economic superpowers, but because it provides them enough leverage to also exploit the poor the majority world.

Whether it is intellectual property rights, the reduction in agriculture subsidies, the trade in agriculture and services, the sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, or for that matter the question of foreign direct investments, rules and regulations have been so framed that the benefit only percolates to the rich and developed countries. If the poor nations violate these rules to protect their sovereignty and food security, they are threatened with trade sanctions and economic isolation. But if the developed countries makes an exemption, it is all justified, and that too, economically.

Take the case of agricultural subsidies. The WTO had spelled out a phase-out formula for the developed countries. It wasn’t followed. Subsidies in turn increased to a whopping US$1 billion a day and still the Fourth Ministerial at Doha simply refused to use the whip against the erring countries. The Doha round of trade talks broke down last September in Cancun over developing countries' unhappiness with farm subsidies in the US and European Union. Since then, WTO members have been struggling to get the talks back on track by an end-July deadline.

The so-called QUAD countries – the United States, European Union, Canada and Japan – instead managed to provide the developing countries with a lollipop. Returning from Doha with promises to ‘phase out subsidies’ and to ‘take into account the development needs, including food security and rural development’. The developed country subsidies therefore remain protected. But at the same time, the developing world has been forced to open the trade barriers for cheap and highly subsidized imports from the developed countries. In the past eight years, ever since the WTO came into effect on Jan 1, 1995 developing countries have been inundated with cheap food imports thereby further marginalising the farming communities, and in the process adding onto poverty and hunger.

It is all a case of mistrust and lack of faith. If the developing countries, despite their poverty, had faith on the promises being churned out by the developed countries, things wouldn’t have reached such a low. What worries the developing countries is that none of the upholders of democracy, freedom and equality have ever raised a whimper at the questionable and partisan decisions being made by the US/EU at the WTO. Still worse, these manipulations are always performed in the name of trade and governance. Trade can only make a difference if the governance in the developing countries improves, we are invariably and shamelessly told.

Good governance has only to be the hallmark for the developing world. For the developed world, you have to turn a blind eye so as to follow the proverbial three monkeys: ‘Don’t see their evil, don’t hear their evil and don’t ever try to speak of their evil.’ Bollywood (and for that matter Hollywood) has to learn to re-write the script for its blockbusters. Robert Zoellick and Pascal Lamy have emerged on the scene. They are both waiting to be hired as script writers. Is Michael Moore and Mahesh Bhatt listening?

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