Earth Summit debate shifts to leaders

JOHANNESBURG - Wrangling between officials over diplomatic language is about to give way to the arrival of squabbling world leaders at the Earth Summit.

Negotiators in Johannesburg were deadlocked at the halfway stage of the 10-day summit yesterday on wording in a draft United Nations plan to eliminate poverty and protect the environment. But it may take the arrival of world leaders such as Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe this weekend for outsiders to get a real flavour of what that debate is all about.

A big protest march from the slum shanty township of Alexandra to the nearby summit venue in wealthy Sandton may also help to put a human face to the disputes between rich and poor.

Mugabe is held up in the rich world as an example of the sort of "bad governance" many want curbed in return for aid money.

Yet his intellectual credentials and guerrilla war against Rhodesia's white rulers made him a hero to many in the Third World. He has hit back, saying that the "globalisation" of corporate power is merely Western colonialism in a new guise.

Britain has been a particular target of his wrath. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who heads for the region today, could come face to face with Mugabe.

British officials say they have been trying hard to ensure the two men do not get too close when they both address the summit on Tuesday.

About 100 world leaders from nearly 200 countries are due in to sign up to a broad but non-binding plan calling for actions ranging from cleaning water supplies to saving trees and fighting Aids. The bulk of the UN plan has been agreed.

The United States, which has been accused of derailing progress, launched a diplomatic counter-offensive this week, rolling out public-private sector partnerships which it claims are the best means of fighting global poverty and protecting the environment.

But environmentalists have dismissed the "Type 2" partnerships, saying they help big businesses increase profits rather than help the poor. Type 2 partnerships combine voluntary efforts by governments, the private sector and non-governmental organisations. Type 1 partnerships are agreements among governments.

Environmentalists say the Type 2 partnerships provide a way for governments to offload their responsibility to provide essential services such as clean water, sanitation and energy.

Friends of the Earth says privatisation of water supplies has resulted in higher prices and nearly one in five people, or 1.1 billion of the world's population, have no access to drinking water.

But US government officials defended the partnerships as indicating America's willingness to solve problems in poor countries.

Officials have also failed to reconcile US and European Union demands for aid to be tied more clearly to improved human rights and democracy and insistence by developing nations that the rich states must do more to cut subsidies to their own farmers.

The EU in particular seemed to have problems accepting compromise texts, one negotiator said.

The bloc is divided on the issue of subsidies - something French President Jacques Chirac, who defends them, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who wants them cut, may find time to talk about in Johannesburg.

- REUTERS

Johannesburg Summit