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