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WTO negotiators race for compromise deal
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-18 14:30 Meanwhile, security forces prepared for more fighting and chaos as protesters
planned another street march on the last day of the meeting.
The sit-in
protesters outside the convention center - many of them South Korean farmers
worried about losing protection for their domestic rice market - center chanted
"down, down WTO" as officers led them away in batches and loaded them into
buses. They did not resist the police, who surrounded them with batons and
shields.
Police spokesman Alfred Ma urged the public not to join the
protests because of the threat of more violence.
Among the protesters
was militant French farmer Jose Bove, best known for ransacking a McDonald's
restaurant under construction near his home in 1999.
"What the small
farmers want all over the world is to feed their own population," he said
"That's what the people are fighting for."
The 149-member WTO
traditionally doesn't extend its meetings and adheres to a strict deadline.
Delegates have to be out of the convention center by 5 a.m. Monday because the
venue is booked for other events - raising the specter of another all-night
negotiating session.
"I'm staying as long as the last negotiator is
standing," Portman said.
Negotiations were stalled on a package to help
the world's least developed nations by granting their exports duty-free and
quota-free privileges. While the U.S. and Japan had previously raised objections
to the proposal - the U.S. over textiles from Bangladesh, Japan over rice
imports - Pakistan also expressed concerns Sunday about the wording.
The
flurry of talks come at the end of nearly a week of contentious negotiations
that have produced little progress on reducing trade barriers in services,
manufacturing and farming.
The original goal for the Hong Kong meeting
was to deliver a detailed outline for a global free trade agreement that the WTO
hopes to forge by the end of 2006.
But that objective was considered
unreachable even before the six-day gathering began due to an impasse over how
much rich nations should cut tariffs and subsidies protecting their agricultural
markets, with EU inflexibility on the issue seen by most as the biggest
obstacle.
Struggling to salvage the meeting, delegates worked to hammer
out a final statement that showed some modest progress in a few areas _ but even
that still remained in doubt.
They were also debating a proposal for
rich nations to end export subsidies for cotton in 2006, which would be a
victory for West African cotton-growing nations and a concession from the United
States.
Portman said the measure would be hard to sell to U.S.
lawmakers, and that he had been discussing the matter with Washington and
African nations throughout the night.
"We're looking at some language
right now that causes us some problem, quite frankly... but we're hopeful that
we resolve that as well," he said.
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