CONVERGENCE

@ Zeal, Victoria Street, (Opposite the Police Station!) Wellington

PROGRAMME

Saturday 3 November 2001

10.00 am Welcome, Opening Comments, Introductions

11.30 am Workshops I
Introduction to Free Trade
Anti Capitalist Theory

1.00 am Lunch

2.00 pm Workshops II
Free Trade in Services (GATS)
Decolonisation
Options for Activism

3.15 pm Break

3.45 pm Workshops III
Bastion Point
GE and Free Trade
Bypass / Direct Action

5.00 pm Close

Sunday 4 November 2001

10.30 am Workshops IV
Street Theatre
Indymedia
Unions, Youth and Globalisation
Militarism and Globalisation

12.00 noon Lunch

1.00 pm Workshops V
Banner Painting (starts at 12)
Street Theatre (cont.)
Understanding Afghanistan
Participatory Democracy

2.15 pm Break

2.30 pm Final Plenary
Report back from workshops
Address: Jane Kelsey

4.00 pm Close, Farewell

On 9 November 2001, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting opens in Qatar.

At the last Ministerial Meeting held in Seattle in 1999, tens of thousands of protesters brought that city to a stand still and put the anti-free trade or anti-globalisation movement on the world map.

Since that time almost every international meeting of the international and political elite (whether the IMF / World Bank, G8, World Economic Forum) has been the target of huge protests. In different ways the protests have called for an end to the system of political and economic domination of the majority of the world's people by the rich and powerful few, an end to poverty, an end to environmental degradation. They have called for a just and fair world.

Just over a month ago the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon have added a new dimension. Rather than bringing the perpetrators of these acts to justice through the international legal system, the United States and its Allies (including New Zealand) have decided to take military revenge on the people of one of the poorest countries of the world - Afghanistan.

Around the world at this time, peoples organisations, trade unions, environmental groups and individual activists are taking action against the WTO and WAR. Over the next week in Wellington there will be a number of opportunities to learn, discuss and protest at the role of the WTO and the threat of war.

Wellington Coalition Against WTO & WAR, c/o P.O. Box 50216, Porirua, Tel (04) 237 5062

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