“I am Jiten Yumnam from the Center for Research and Advocacy in Manipur. Today we join the World Day of People’s Mobilization against the World Trade Organization.

The World Trade Organization has promoted a neoliberal agenda promoting neoliberal globalization, privatization, deregulation of policies everywhere. It has affected many indigenous people across Asia and even in my part of the world here in Manipur in the northeast part of India.

Under the leadership of the WTO, countries like India are pursuing a neoliberal economy that has subsequently increased foreign direct investment, which has also increased the corporatization of land and resources.

What we are saying is that with the formulation of neoliberal policies, with the growth and promotion of international financial institutions, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, there is an increase in corporatization.

There is an increase in the involvement of multinational companies in the construction of large dams targeting our rivers and also an increase in the exploitation of our lands and resources.

In addition, there is an increase in oil exploration and large infrastructure projects.

These are all intended to plunder and exploit our rivers, our forests, our minerals.

It has also led to massive human rights violations and the displacement of indigenous peoples from their lands and their own livelihoods.

The increased corporatization encouraged by the WTO is also an increased threat not only to livelihoods but also to the culture, lifestyles, identity and basic survival of indigenous peoples.

For many indigenous peoples, we depend on our lands, our rivers, our forests for our very survival. This land relationship is in fact important not only for the present generation, but even for the generation to come, as indigenous peoples are very concerned about the neoliberal agenda which has been strengthened and promoted by the WTO.

It is not only targeting our lands, but also the neoliberal agenda in agriculture for example, and the free trade agreement has also led to the dumping of agricultural products controlled by legal persons.

It has undermined indigenous agriculture and traditional forms of subsistence and, increasingly, it has also contaminated our lands and affected our health.

Ultimately, the WTO agenda had a negative impact not only on the land, not just on livelihoods, not just on the survival of indigenous peoples, but it also affected culture and identity. same as the intergenerational survival of our people. .

We call for the end of the WTO! We join the calls for a popular trade agenda! “

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• Watch the global day of action on November 30
“Forging solidarity for a world without the WTO” and November 24 “A future without the WTO! Webinar on the fight against the World Trade Organization! “
organized by the People on profit (POP), International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), Popular Coalition for Food Sovereignty – Global

(PCFS), Asia-Pacific Research Network (APRN), Ibon International and IPMSDL.

• Read and download “Profit in the Time of the Pandemic: How Big Pharma Profited from the COVID-19 Crisis and Why the TRIPS Agreement Should Be AbolishedFrom the APRN.

• Free publications! “The waiver of TRIPS and sustainable development, People-Centered Recovery ”from Ibon International.

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