WACC Calls for Action on WTO Meeting in Hong Kong

World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and Global Media Monitoring Program

Taking the side of justice and human dignity in media, and promoting diverse media ownership, WACC works for the right to communicate especially in situations of censorship and oppression.

Statement of the Board of Directors of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC)

WACC Calls for Action on WTO Meeting in Hong Kong

We, Christian communicators from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America, and the Pacific, coming together for the meeting of the Board of Directors of the World Association for Christian Communication from October 2-7, 2005 express our grave concern regarding the forthcoming Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization to be held in Hong Kong in December 2005.

Recent experience teaches us that the WTO is an instrument for consolidating a world political and economic order in which human knowledge and creativity have been reduced to commodities exchanged for profit. In this process, fewer and fewer corporations, including major communication conglomerates, are fencing off public access to humankind’s common intellectual heritage.

To be a Christian communicator means taking sides for justice, peace and freedom and against falsehood, exclusion and oppression. The ideals of Christian communication foster a spirit of solidarity, and a shared commitment to build a just world and a common prosperity.

We call on all WACC members to actively oppose the new round of WTO accords. As we have seen in Seattle and Cancun, WTO agreements can be derailed; the train of history is not moving inexorably towards this particular world political and economic order. We can build better agreements more rooted in and more respectful of our common humanity.

At this moment in history our task is to share the untold stories of the human costs imposed by a political and economic system that puts profit above the value of life itself. Therefore we call on all our colleagues in the media to tell the stories of the farmers, peasants, workers, migrants, indigenous peoples, women and other marginalized groups whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the policies that may be approved in Hong Kong.

- 6 October 2005