Marx on Wall Street? WTO city awaits Fidel Castro

But, the question on everyone’s lips is will Castro walk through the portals of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and re-claim the rightful place of the 1948 Havana Charter, the precursor to GATT and the WTO? Will he tilt the balance at the WTO’s fiftieth birthday party on May 19 that will be attended by Tony Blair, Romano Prodi, Jacques Chirac and maybe even Bill Clinton? Will he tick Washington off on its Helms Burtonlaw, a domestic US rule that prevents Americans from doing business with Cuba and which the US has been seeking to impose on the rest of the world?

Will he tell the movers and shakers of the globalisation and privatisation mantra to take a walk as only he can. Will he, will he, will he… diplomats say the very presence of Castro in Geneva will focus international attention on another kind of political discourse. Castro taking the pulpit at the WTO is something like Karl Marx on Wall Street. Even more. Il Commandante had his revolution.

Few people remember Cuba’s claim to free and fair international trade diplomacy. The General Agreement on Tariffs and trade (GATT) was born in 1948 as a temporary arrangement until the Havana Charter and the International Trade Organisation (ITO) envisaged under it came into being. But the US Congress refused to ratify the Charter since that would have meant ceding parts of its sovereignty in trade policy matters. The result was that GATT remained a provisional treaty forover forty years. It was replaced by the WTO in 1995.

Castro is also slated to speak at the fiftieth anniversary of the World Health Assembly (WHA) on May 14 when the organisation is expected to ratify the nomination of former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland as its new chief. Cuba’s health indicators are there on top, with the industrialised nations of the world. Diplomats say in many ways, Cuba is one of the few countries that has been able to achieve health for all.Renewal and refocus is in the air and the 71-year-old Castro is riding that crest. Castro who received Pope John Paul last January and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien last week has enjoyed a lot of international attention in recent months. Late last month the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), the world’s leading human rights body threw out, for the first time in many years, one of its regular features a US backed resolution condemning Cuba. Winds of change have also blown through the trade world. At the WTO,the US and the European Union have locked horns over the Helms Burton law and at last count the two are moving towards and agreement. The US has only recently eased very slightly its sanctions against Cuba. The sanctions have been in place since the 1961 US trained and backed unsuccesful invasion of Cuba which was to overthrow Castro and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when president John F Kennedy and Castro averted a nuclear blow-out.

Hillary Clinton will stay at the same hotel for a day. But Castro will be in Che’s room. Che, the Argentine guerilla leader who fought alongside Castro to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, stayed in the same room at the Hotel Intercontinental when he came to the first meeting of the UN Conference on Trade and Development. As symbols go, you can’t beat this one.