WTO protesters absent during Geneva talks

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - Activists abandoned protests at the World Trade Organisation this week in favour of quiet lobbying over a global market-opening deal some say is not worth demonstrating against because it has little chance of approval.

Free trade critics said the demonstrators were conspicuous by their absence and this year's Geneva summit stood in stark contrast to past riotous WTO gatherings in Seattle, Cancun, and Hong Kong.

"The fact that these negotiations have been going on for so long has led to some dropping away of attention from the wider world," said Oxfam spokeswoman Amy Barry.

"There is a bit of a 'boy who cried wolf' syndrome, where you think: how many times is it going to be the last chance?"

Carin Smaller of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy said climate change and the food crisis had eclipsed concerns about the WTO's Doha round, which The Economist magazine recently made light of in a cartoon reading: "Do-ha-ha-ha."

"The chance of a deal being reached is so remote that people no longer put their energy into the WTO," Smaller said.

In the place of street demonstrations, grassroots activists have taken a more formal approach to voice their concerns about the 7-year-old Doha talks, which were launched to bolster the world economy and help poor exporters compete.

Some 250 non-governmental groups have registered with the WTO for this week's meeting. Many campaigners are busy writing e-mails and making calls from offices at the United Nations weather agency, located one block away from the WTO building.

A network known as Our World Is Not For Sale has also flown in a handful of subsistence farmers to Geneva to discuss trade issues, speak at press conferences, and meet WTO delegates from countries including Britain, China, Bolivia and Venezuela.

Sago Indra, an Indonesian rice farmer, said many peasants were distressed about WTO policies they see as making their lives harder. "But to come to Geneva requires a lot of money," he said through a translator.

Indian cotton farmer Vijay Jawandhia said the Doha talks were biased to favour agri-business and would pinch small-scale farmers in developing countries more than rich-nation producers.

"I think that family farmers in Europe are vanishing. They have sold their land to corporations," he said. "That must be one reason there are no protests."

Gregorio San Diego, a Filipino poultry farmer, said the exclusivity of the talks -- proceeding behind closed doors at the heavily barricaded WTO -- meant it was illogical for those squeezed by high fuel and food prices to make the trip.

"It's a waste of time and a waste of money coming here."

Some diplomats said the lack of protests also put a damper on the talks, in which ministers are seeking to agree on cuts to politically sensitive farm subsidies and import duties.