CANCUN, Mexico - The World Trade Organization (news - web sites) kicked off five days of meetings Wednesday aimed at breaking the deadlock in trade negotiations as rich and poor nations face off over agricultural subsidies.
WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi said it was time for members to agree on removing barriers to trade, saying "there comes a time when rhetoric has to be backed by action."
Several nonprofit organizations invited to the ceremony staged loud protests inside the meeting hall, disrupting the speeches as they held up signs accusing the WTO of being undemocratic and obsolete.
The meeting was an extension of talks begun nearly two years ago in Doha, Qatar. Delegates already have missed several important deadlines, and members have expressed concern that they may not finish by their self-imposed deadline: the end of next year.
"We should learn from the past and face the reality that we cannot keep postponing decisions," Supachai said.
Meanwhile, thousands of farmers gathered in downtown Cancun for a march down the hotel-lined peninsula to the meeting site. Police manned chain-link barricades set up to block the route.
Protesters have been a force at every major WTO meeting since 1999, when street riots disrupted delegates in Seattle. Activists — who include farmers, union leaders and students — argue that current free trade rules benefit big business at the expense of poor nations and the environment.
Some 4,700 delegates from the WTO's 146 member nations were gathered in Cancun. Expectations that the meeting will produce more than a loose framework for future negotiations are low.
Developing countries want major concessions from the European Union and the United States to reduce their farm subsidy programs.
Ministers also are considering whether to open their economies to more foreign investment, which some have argued will drive local producers out of business.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan accused rich nations of leaving billions in poverty and misery through unfair trade policies.
"We are told that trade can provide a ladder to a better life and deliver us from poverty and despair, and we are led to hope that the current round of trade negotiations will deliver on this promise," Annan said in prepared remarks.
"Sadly, the reality of the international trading system today doesn't match the rhetoric. Instead of open markets there are too many barriers that stunt, stifle and stop it (trade). Instead of fair competition there are subsidies by rich countries that tilt the playing field against the poor."
The head of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, Rubens Ricupero, read the speech after Annan had to leave for a U.N. Security Council meeting in Geneva.
Annan said the solution was not to abandon the WTO's system of setting rules but to ensure that in the future they benefit all countries.
The WTO solved a big problem shortly before the Cancun meeting when it agreed on a system allowing poor countries to import cheap copies of drugs to treat diseases like AIDS and malaria. Annan said it was now important to ensure that the system works in practice.
"You have an awesome responsibility and a great opportunity," he said.
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