Number 474, August 29, 2002.
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Dear Sejup readers,
An important popular plebiscite on the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas) will occur in September. In this edition of News from Brazil, we are sending you on a statement from the organizers of the plebiscite as well as a statement we received from a Catholic missionary group. From all that we have read from grass roots movements, the accord is bad for Brazil and bad for Latin America as a whole.
PRESS STATEMENT
The National Coordination of the Brazilian Campaign against the FTAA - Free
Trade Agreement for the Americas - counting on the participation of thirty
six representatives of social movements, civil society organizations and
political parties, met in São Paulo, on July 18, 2002.
The participants made an evaluation of the way the campaign is being
organized around the country, discussed the themes related to the National
Plebiscite on the FTAA, to be held on Sep. 1-7, 2002, the educational and
informational materials and the calendar of activities to mobilize for the
struggle against the FTAA in Brazil and in the Americas.
The questions to be included in the ballot for the Plebiscite were discussed
and the decision was to maintain the decision taken by the 9th National
Plenary of the Campaign (June, 3-4, 2002), as follows:
1. Should the Brazilian government sign the FTAA treaty?
2. Should the Brazilian government continue to participate in the FTAA
negotiations?
3. Should the Brazilian government transfer part of our territoty - the
Alcantara Base - for the military control of the United States?
[N.B. For more background on the Alcantara Base, go to the Sejup website and look at Recent Newsletters, No. 473]
It was agreed that the National Plebiscite about the FTAA will be called by
the social movements, churches and civil society organizations who are
members of the National Coordination, and that every political party will
decide how to contribute to this process within its broader political
strategy in the context of the current electoral year.
The evaluation of how the National Campaign is being organized provided the
awareness that, even if the theme is dense and complex, it has become a
source of interest for popular debate, mobilization, organization and
participation. The Campaign is being organized in all states of Brazil and
counts on the commitment of thousands of militants and grassroots
organizations.
Coordination of the National Campaign against the FTAA
Coordenação da Campanha Nacional Contra a ALCA
Maryknoll Association of the Faithful in Latin America
Statement on the Free Trade Area of the Americas
We, the lay missioners of the Maryknoll Association of the Faithful in Latin America, assembled in Caracas, Venezuela wish to take this opportunity to object strenuously to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
We belong to a U.S.-based Catholic missionary organization with hundreds of years of combined experience working hand in hand with the poor of Latin America in the marginalized rural and urban communities of Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia. The poverty of the people with whom we work increases daily and the violence we encounter grows. The communities where we work provide increasing evidence that the current political and economic policies of the U.S. and international financial institutions, far from alleviating this poverty and violence, contribute to the increasing poverty and hunger and widen the gap between rich and poor.
The negotiations of the FTAA are being held in an extremely non-democratic manner with very little public disclosure and no participation from sectors of civil society. This way of proceeding will only contribute to undermine the valiant efforts in many countries to strengthen the democratic process.
The FTAA, as it is being negotiated, will cause greater poverty and environmental destruction in all the countries of Latin America. Because of this threat, we offer the following:
Considering that poverty and environmental destruction have verifiably and notably increased in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico during the eight years of NAFTA;
Considering that the FTAA will extend these same results to 31 other countries in Latin America;
Considering that the FTAA will transfer decision making power from democratic governments to closed tribunals;
Considering that the FTAA will further destabilize the national economies of all involved countries by eliminating the capacity to control the flow of capital;
And, considering that the FTAA treaty being negotiated will likely worsen these situations:
- Of women, by increasing overall poverty and decreasing access to public services, i.e. health, water, energy, etc.;
- Of children by the privatization of education and an increase in child labor;
- Of family farms through an inundation of subsidized, genetically modified agricultural products resulting in an increasing dependency on agroindustry, making food security impossible;
- Of local, state and national governments' ability to sustain independent development strategies in the face of investor-to-state processes in closed FTAA tribunals. These FTAA tribunals would have the power to overrule decisions of national tribunals and influence decisions of national congresses;
- Of commercial businesses by the domination of a small number of transnational corporations through the removal of protective measures for national and local businesses;
- Of indigenous communities by expelling them from resource rich lands and stealing native knowledge through the process of patenting indigenous medicinal plants and medicines;
- Of the environment by weakening environmental regulations.
We call for the cessation of the FTAA negotiations in order to begin the discussion of an alternative economic and social integration of the Americas that will:
1. Promote sustainable and equitable development.
2. Promote the capacity of governments to construct a development policy that will benefit all citizens.
3. Protect essential public services from privatization to insure access for all, especially the most vulnerable sectors of society.
4. Guarantee workers' rights and security.
5. Maintain the precautionary principle that allows countries to prevent the sale of products which have not been proven to be safe for consumption.
6. Retain the cultures and diversity of all peoples.
7. Value the environment and guarantee its health for future generations.
We condemn the fact that the negotiations for the FTAA are being hidden from the public eye. The only organizations given free access to the negotiations are the largest transnational corporations. We demand that for a true integration, there should be ample debate and discussion open to all sectors of society. Globalization has the potential to bring many benefits to our peoples, but only if everyone can participate in the process.
As the negotiations of the FTAA have been shown to include a number of measures that will be extremely prejudicial to the vast majority of the Americas, we call on all who read this to participate in the continental campaign against the FTAA being organized by the Hemispheric Social Alliance. We issue a call to churches, workers, farmers, women, children, environmentalists, indigenous peoples, popular movements, political parties and all people who want to create a just world to join in this struggle. It is essential that we stop this process in order to begin planning an integration that is democratic and serves the needs of all.
July 30,2002
Pozo de Rosas, Venezuela
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