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Journalism of Courage
No food, no thought!
The mismanagement by the famously efficient Americans at Seattle was in evidence not only in a frankly flabbergasted administration’s handling of anti-WTO protests. One of the more hilarious moments of the day occurred when, after a two-hour delay in the opening session, a crackling microphone made everyone draw a sigh of relief. The session was eventually called off unceremoniously. But not before a representative of the Washington-based NGO Media Watch sneaked on to the podium and began to deliver a lecture to assorted ministers and country delegations about how the WTO had failed to allow a fruitful exchange of views between governments and civil society.
The eloquent lady was yanked off the stage and carried off kicking and screaming vigorously by police before red American faces at the fact that not only had they failed to control the protests outside, the protestors had captured the government podium to make their point. A disgusted Indian delegation and manyothers staged an informal walkout at that point and went in search of a lunch, which too was elusive. The inefficiency did not end there.
For love of money, food and drink were not things you were likely to find at any of the venues for this huge conference with delegations from 134 countries and an estimated 2,000 journalists. Ushers at the venues apologetically explained that the opening event had been meant to be over by noon and so there were no arrangements for refreshments. But in fact the lack of food in this land of plenty was in evidence throughout the day. Everyone who had been to the first WTO ministerial conference in Singapore three years earlier wistfully recalled the remarkably fastidious arrangements at that meeting and the shockingly shabby ones at Seattle.
Busy Supachai
Who says the WTO boss, or at least the future WTO boss, is a busy man? At a time when the WTO has had notoriously little time to prepare for a conference meant to kick off a grandiosely named millennium round,the future director-general of the organisation was giving a lecture at Stanford about the WTO’s agenda.
For the uninitiated, there is a story here. Supachai Panitchpakdi, present deputy-director general who is to take over the WTO leadership in three years’ time, was involved in a running battle for election to the top job with present boss Mike Moore. Only a compromise that provided that Moore would be succeeded by Supachai after three years resolved the WTO succession in time for the conference. Is it too unkind to wonder if it is as a consequence of this that Supachai finds himself without sufficient gainful employment in his organisation at this time?
