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Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 00:59:41 -0400
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Subject: November Meeting in Cuba to Fight FTAA
November Meeting in Cuba to Fight FTAA
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
HEMISPHERIC MEETING TO FIGHT AGAINST THE FTAA
Palacio de las Convenciones de la Habana, Cuba
November 13-16, 2001
Against Annexation!
For the defence of the sovereignty of Latin America and the Caribbean !
For the fight against social exclusion and poverty !
For a grassroots debate and referendum !
For a new integrated Americas, for economic development and social justice.
Cuban organisations, represented by workers, students, peasants, women,
economists, journalists, lawyers, researchers, clergy, artists and
intellectuals are calling for a hemispheric meeting to fight against the
FTAA in Havana from November 13-16, 2001.
This missive is an urgent invitation we are sending to all the countries of
the Americas, from the Industrialised North to the Patagonia and from the
Continent to the Caribbean. With this meeting in Cuba, we hope to contribute
to this growing and converging movement that is organising against the
project to create a giant free trade area throughout the Americas.
We are calling on everyone who shares our concern about the future of our
people: Unionists, peasants, students, women, academics, artists,
intellectuals, youth, indigenous people, environmentalists, clergy,
entrepreneurs and more!
The debate we are asking you to get involved in is part of the opposition
movement to neoliberal globalisation that we saw in Seattle, Davos, Prague,
Geneva and most recently in Quebec City during the Second Peoples? Summit of
the Americas. People from all over the world attended and subscribed to the
persuasiveness of the arguments presented. During the Summit, the different
integration alternatives that the grassroots and social movements proposed,
as opposed to the current free-trade model, were highlighted.
The Peoples? Summit, which was convened by the Hemispheric Social Alliance
(HSA) brought together various grassroots movements, unions,
environmentalists, women, youth as well as human rights, international
solidarity, indigenous, peasant and religious groups. The Peoples? Summit
definitive conclusion was that the fight against the FTAA needs to continue
on all fronts and that this needs to include new sectors to help enrich the
fight. As the final declaration says: ?Another Americas is possible. No to
the FTAA without the participation of the people?.
We hope that the meeting in Cuba will be an important space for support and
mobilisation for the upcoming World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil
(January 2002) and a follow-up to the Peoples? Summit and the initiative for
a referendum on the FTAA.
Never again should we have to submit to an Accord that is negotiated without
us.
WE HAVE A LOT TO DEBATE
In recent years, thanks to the various opposition movements against the
extreme liberalisation of the markets, there has been a growing critical
consciousness about the stakes surrounding globalisation and its political,
economic, military, informational and cultural hegemony.
The FTAA represents a lot more than simple business liberalisation as its
negotiators claim. It is actually a US strategic project to consolidate its
domination over Latin America through the expansion of its economic borders.
The FTAA would deepen economic and financial deregulation, which has already
lead to the political weakening of Latin American States and has placed
their economies in precarious situations.
Since the First Summit of the Americas (Miami, 1994), the process has
rapidly advanced under the direction of the 9 working groups and the 3
special committees who decide the rules and the norms that will soon
regulate the reduction of tariff barriers and political subsidies,
anti-dumping, compensation procedures, investment themes, the opening to
foreign capital, intellectual property, protecting the interests of
multinationals (especially in the pharmaceutical and bio-technology fields)
and services. The propositions put forward by the FTAA will have adverse
effects in all these areas, especially if we consider the marked asymmetry
between the economies of Central and South America with that of the United
States.
After centuries of turning a deaf ear to the demands for co-operation and
economic relationships with other counties in the hemisphere, the United
States is now showing an uncanny interest in the FTAA and wants to have it
approved by 2005.
WHAT WE WANT
Under a vast and pluralistic framework, where an amalgamation of forces and
personalities are gathering, and by respecting diverse opinions, we will be
able to move ahead with our goal of advancing toward independence, identity
and the right to a democratic and complete development of our people. We
need to move beyond the dangers of the FTAA and elaborate on concrete
propositions for hemispheric integration.
Grassroots mobilisation and the creation of a collective conscious are now
major tasks. We hope that the meeting in Havana is part of the strategy that
aims to bring down the misinformation and the silence that results from the
international media?s manipulations. This meeting should also lead the
debate on behalf of all people who are trying to make their points heard.
All people of the Americas should know that this extreme right wing
government sponsored project, which stimulates repression on a global scale,
that is compliant with racist and sexist politics and is the enemy of
environmental protection, contains nothing of any advantage to the people of
the Americas.
Our people need to be aware, with support documents, that the FTAA project
signifies the submission of Latin-American economies by the United States.
Latin American oligarchies, motivated by the own self-interest and
neoliberal ideology, are putting their country?s sovereignty at risk by
favouring annexation by the United States.
The FTAA would be synonymous with open interventionism, of repression and
the unrestricted application of the ?limited sovereignty? doctrine on the
governments that decide to sign up.
The FTAA would concretise the under-development that characterises Latin
America and the Caribbean - our countries as producers of brut material and
cheap labour.
The FTAA would worsen an already precarious alimentary situation and
heightens the danger of famine that already afflicts Central America.
The FTAA would limit the power of national economies, which would result in
the destruction of small and medium producers, businesses and entrepreneurs
at the hands of the profits of large American multinationals.
The FTAA would expel the exports and investments from Europe and elsewhere
from Latin American Caribbean markets. This would directly affect thousands
of workers in various sectors.
The FTAA would see a rise in unemployment, an increase in the rural exodus,
wild urbanisation in the big cities, the elimination of the middle class
social-fabric, the polarisation of wealth and would eventually engender an
explosive social crisis.
The FTAA signifies more than neoliberalism and would result in the state
abandoning its responsibilities in social services, including the
destruction of our health-care, education, child protection and elderly care
systems. Thereby increasing social problems.
The FTAA, as demonstrated by the accord signed by Canada, Mexico and the
United States, would not benefit workers in the North either. In fact, they
continue to lose their jobs and workers in the North and in the South have
seen their lives worsen.
The FTAA, according to the above-mentioned arguments, would signify an
environmental disaster for all of humanity - when even now, our environment
is at risk.
The FTAA would threaten indigenous communities, including the disappearance
of their spaces, languages, traditions and cultural origins.
The FTAA would worsen the lives of Latin American and Caribbean women. Women
who already have limited rights and are the victims of discrimination and
sexist politics at work, in their political and social lives and even inside
their family.
The FTAA would open even more doors for North American mass culture, for
increased domination from media multinationals and would lead to the
irreversible loss of our national identity and to the general impoverishment
of our culture at the hands of the North-Americanisation of the entire
continent.
THE HAVANA AGENDA
There will be no annexation if there is a referendum - and a real referendum
on the FTAA becomes possible if we demand a democratic space, if we begin a
real process of diffusing information and a grassroots consultation with our
people.
For this meeting to fight against the FTAA we are proposing a plenary, where
we would analyse with the largest diffusion possible, a general theme
targeting the threats the FTAA poses for the people of Latin America, the
Caribbean and North America. It will also privilege the voices that want
another type of integration, one based on democracy, humanism, social
justice and defending the environment.
THEMES
· The FTAA and the economic integration of the Latin America and the
Caribbean. Integration that is subordinate to the United States and based on
the principles of neoliberalism. Business, investment, intellectual
property, work conditions and the environment.
· The FTAA and the independence and sovereignty of Latin America and the
Caribbean. The political and ideological fight against the FTAA. The work of
the media, of social movements, organisations and parliaments in the face of
this fight.
· The realisation of national referendums on participating in the FTAA.
· The FTAA as a deepening of neoliberal politics in Latin America and the
Caribbean. Poverty and social inequality. Under-employment, the
informalisation and precariousness of work. Urbanism and social problems.
Indigenous people. Racism and sexism.
· The FTAA as a threat to the cultural identity of the people of the
Americas and the Caribbean.
· The fight against the FTAA: unity and co-ordination of the different
movements and forces who share the same concerns.
· Declaration and action plan against the FTAA.
La Havane, Cuba, 31 août 2001
CENTRAL DE TRABAJADORES DE CUBA (CTC)
FEDERACION ESTUDIANTIL UNIVERSITARIA (FEU)
FEDERACION ESTUDIANTIL DE LA ENSEÑANZA MEDIA (FEEM)
ASOCIACION NACIONAL DE AGRICULTORES PEQUEÑOS (ANAP)
FEDERACION DE MUJERES CUBANAS (FMC)
CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONES DE LA ECONOMÍA MUNDIAL (CIEM)
ASOCIACION NACIONAL DE ECONOMISTAS Y CONTADORES DE CUBA (ANEC)
UNIÓN DE PERIODISTAS DE CUBA (UPEC)
UNIÓN NACIONAL DE JURISTAS DE CUBA (UNJC)
UNIÓN NACIONAL DE ESCRITORES Y ARTISTAS DE CUBA (UNEAC)
CONSEJO DE IGLESIAS DE CUBA
CENTRO MEMORIAL DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING
INSTITUTO CUBANO DE AMISTAD CON LOS PUEBLOS (ICAP)
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REGISTRATION FORM
HEMISPHERIC MEETING TO FIGHT AGAINST THE FTAA
Havana, Cuba. November 13-16, 2001
For a new integrated Americas, for economic
development and social justice
Organisation or Institution:
Country:
Telephone (s):
Fax:
E-mail:
Names of representatives who want to participate:
1.
2.
3.
Please send your completed form to the following address:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The deadline to register is October 31, 2001
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