MEDIA REACTION: TRADE; QUITO

UNCLAS QUITO 002925 SIPDIS STATE FOR INR/R/MR, WHA, WHA/AND, WHA/PDA DIRONDCP FOR PA EMBASSIES FOR PAO/IO E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL OPRC KIRC KPAO EC SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: TRADE; QUITO ¶1. "WTO: Discriminatory Globalization," an editorial (12/22) in Quito's leading centrist "El Comercio" (circ. 70,000) Quote: ". . .although it is ironic from the perspective of underdeveloped countries, an agreement was reached, or better still a circumstantial way out so that eight years from now the agricultural subsidies that protect that activity in many countries of the developed world will be eliminated. "The result, a precarious achievement of delayed execution, is very dangerous, because it means that the economic liberalization of the world has two faces with very different fates. One is the developed one, which protects its extraordinary technological development sheltering an unproductive and incompetent agricultural field; that balances the distribution of the GDP -via compensations-without affecting the economic stability of the system or attempting against the social structure of its historical urban centers. "The other face is located in underdeveloped countries. It is endowed with a great agricultural field that is prevented from incorporating into the large world markets, while its poverty indexes grow dangerously. ". . . It is comprehensible that in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin wall the end of history was considered to have arrived, but it becomes inconceivable that [the developed world] had forgotten that hunger and marginalization were at the core of all revolutions in history." JEWELL