Battle lines drawn before first salvoes fired

FRAN O'SULLIVAN at the WTO in CANCUN

Cancun is a city where deadlines don't usually matter.

This seaside resort prides itself on being Mexico's Riviera and quickly envelopes you in its humid sultry air, bringing out the indolent holiday-maker in even the most workaholic.

But Cancun is now being asked to perform a mission impossible: Inspire concerted action to tear down barriers to global trade.

World Trade Organisation members who have missed almost every deadline they set for themselves when they launched talks on a new deal 22 months ago in Doha will tomorrow begin their official mid-term review.

There is really only one issue in front of the 146 Government delegations dotted among the string of five-star, high-rise hotels fronting a turquoise Caribbean Sea.

Ministers, officials and flunkies have largely spurned Cancun's charms as they work behind scenes to try to break a threatened stalemate on agriculture reform before the five-day summit officially begins.

The world's two trade czars - European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick - separately met representatives from developing countries who say the two rich players are not living up to the Doha rhetoric and ensure these negotiations would deliver a big benefit to them.

US President George Bush has also worked the phones, calling Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, South African President Thabo Mbeki and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to assert the importance of a successful result.

Tomorrow the floor will belong to WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi. Supachai says there is no doubt an ambitious result on agriculture would set in train a powerful momentum and significantly improve chances of finishing a successful round on schedule.

But unless a new deal tears down the protectionist agricultural policies of some of the world's richest developed nations, this negotiating round will not live up to the name Doha Development Agenda.

The prime culprits are the European Union where, in Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton's words, the French in particular treat their farmers as pets; Japan and the US, which despite its free trade persona treats its farmers with kid gloves.

The EU and US have made a combined offer to reduce agriculture subsidies.

But it does not go far enough - as export subsidies and tough market access conditions will still limit trade.

In the developing category are nations ranging from China, India and Brazil through to poor African nations. These countries want agriculture reformed to lift their people's livelihoods and have formed a Group of 20 to get their way.

To one side - and if we are not careful sidelined - lies the Cairns Group. The group of agriculture exporting nations to which New Zealand belongs is openly critical of a dirty deal that the EU and the US have put on the negotiating table.

What this group fears is that the EU and US now dubbed the Gang of Two - will bow to pressure from the Group of 20 and make greater market access available to developing nations' agriculture exporters, but cut the Cairns Group out because they are already rich enough.

Sutton and his Australian counterpart Mark Vaile were also expected to meet Zoellick before the summit and urge him to live up to the Doha ambition.

But even before Supachai opens proceedings he has been upstaged by anti-globalisation activists.

Stripping naked, about two dozen men and women lay on a Cancun beach, their bodies spelling out "No WTO".

Mexican peasant leaders will attempt to reach the Cancun convention hall tomorrow - the first test of elaborate Government security measures.

They will protest their situation against that of EU and US farmers, who get US$300 billion in annual subsidies.

Organisers expect 500,000 demonstrators for a day of action against globalisation which will take place on Saturday.