EPA
Maret 04, 2008
Two days after independent day celebration, the flag had been rising, the celebration atmosphere was being felt, and everyone had been talking about the independent day.In Indonesian capital, there was a guess Japanese prime minister, Shizo Abe came. He came to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements/EPA) Indonesia-Japanese. The question was "did Shinzo Abe and EPA come to refresh Indonesia to have real independent: people's welfare?
In the world Trade Agreement, EPA agreement model came lately. Before EPA, there had been bilateral/regional FTA agreement. The appearance both EPA and FTA were the impact of multilateral free trade agreement on WTO. In the minister conference Hong Kong 2005, it had been arranged that long term trade negotiation was ready to sign.
Finally, complete agreement couldn't realize. Unfinished agreement or forward agreement was forced to get deal. Previous meeting failure such as Seatle, AS, cancan and Mexico were a nightmare. Thousands farmers who were controlled by La Via Compesina world farmer movement delegitimated WTO concretely.
On Jully 2006, WTO's office in Jenewa, Switzerland, WTO ministerial meeting (G4) was failed to get deal, Pascal Lamy who was nomor one person in WTO said freeze negotiation was unlimited. More than a year, the next meeting was conducted in German and the negotiation was stagnant.
Industrial countries and transnational companies thought that EPA and FTA were the solutions of WTO negotiation stagnation. Based on the recorded data, EPA and FTA agreement were being conducted among industrial countries and development countries which did not have economic situation balancely. For instance, EPA proposal among European Union and African Countries and Caribbean, FTA agreement between Thailand and USA, South Korean and USA, FTA ideas among European Union and ASEAN.
Those imbalances showed that free trade in EPA, FTA and WTO frameworks were part of economic domination projects. Based on those projects, nucleus-periphery dependency regime grew up continually and perfectly.
In Japan-Indonesian economic bilateral case, "the elder brother "(Japan) was a Indonesian biggest foreign benefactor both directly and via media mechanism such as Asia development bank. Those debts were completed by number of development policies; it made Indonesian development was reflected for giant company's needs than civilization.
After signing EPA, the negotiation such as debt was much easier than before. Some trade obstacles which were agreed, were deleted Indonesian government agreed to deleted 95% of 11.163 agreements, unfortunately, the economic partnership content was trade liberalization and investment.
Everyone thought that Indonesia-Japanese EPA cooperation would have many advantages. This view was based on the facts. Indonesian trade was surplus US$ 10 billions so fat. Actually, the data was not wrong. However, we hadn't accounted how much net foreign exchange our country was received. It had to remember that trade cooperation between Indonesia and Japan was dominated by fuel export. There were other export commodities; however it was not national economic capacity preview. It was done by some big companies from Japan.
In agriculture sector of Indonesia and Japan, and in signed agreement EPA, there were serious problems. In Japan, since, since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was a leader, agriculture sector was defeated by industrial policies. Although Japan had high technology, free trade made it could not do anything, moreover for farmer family.
Un sovereign
La Via Campesina small farmers meeting in Roma, Yoshitaka Mashima was one of the leader of Nouminren family farmer movement, said that local production fulfilled the first meal. Second meal used import food.
"Actually, our country produced Toyota, Mitsubishi and other products. However, we didn't have food sovereignty," he stated.
Millions of Indonesian little farmer had similar situation, just like in Japan. They were suffered by EPA agreement, because agriculture export foreign exchange was not for farmers, little farmers and little fisherman. It was for agribusiness companies. The increasing of Indonesian agriculture export was not completed by farmers' welfare. Every their landforms was dominated by those companies.
For millions people of both Indonesian and Japan, possible thing to do was to deligitimate EPA agreement. The agreement was the manifestation of agribusiness companies. EPA was not people wish in both countries. Hence, both Indonesia and Japan government didn't have legitimating to sign the agreement.
Actually, colonialism and neo-colonialism were not different. Both were against to the Indonesian Independent's soul.
Resource:http://indoprogress.blogspot.com/2007/08
Created by Tejo Pramono, Committee of Internatioanal Little Farmers movement organization La Via Campesina, Jakarta.
*This article, in different version, it was on Indonesian Business magazine before, on August 24, 007.
