Cancun - 5ème Conférence ministérielle de l'OMC - 10-14 septembre 2003
Document soutenu par l'URFIG
NO
TO FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS
DECLARATION
OF THE CENTRAL AMERICAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
(Managua, 4 juin
2003)
Representatives of popular organizations, including cooperatives, unions, environmentalists, consumers, indigenous peoples, peasants, students and other social movements, along with solidarity and research centers from all Central America, participated in the Central American Reflection and Coordination Encounter organized in Managua, Nicaragua from June 2 to 3, 2003. Having reviewed and discussed the significance of the proposed Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas Agreement (FTAA), the Panama Puebla Plan (PPP), reviewing also in critical fashion the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on the people of Mexico, we come to the following conclusions and Action Plan:
The
imposition of a Free Trade Agreement on Central America responds primarily
to a United States strategy to insure the primacy of its transnational
corporations and as a means to deepen its political and economic control
over the region, all in detriment of the possibility of our countries to
decide their own development and social model.
Once
in place CAFTA would deepen Central America's dependence on the United
States providing transnational capital a regime of privileges and
attributions above our laws and national constitutions while failing to
significantly deal with work and environmental issues.
CAFTA,
the PPP and the FTAA are fundamental building blocs for the imposition of
the World Trade Organization regime on our region and the world
complementing in this way the role played by structural adjustment
agreements forced on our countries by the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank.
The
crude mercantile logic that permeates the CAFTA, PPP and FTAA texts is not
offset by the invitations issued to civil society to "participate"
in consultations and the so called "adjoining room". We reject the
invitations because they are simply attempts to legitimize the processes
pretending these have civil society participation and approval. We will not
participate or legitimate any instrument or process that puts profit and
foreign investor interests before labor, human and economic rights, while
giving foreign capital control over our resources, social services , the
environment and indeed our national sovereignty.
We
denounce legislators who with their vote facilitate laws enabling the
privatization of national resources and who now intend to approve a Free
Trade Agreement with the United States.
The experience of Mexico alerts us to the reality of social insecurity, denationalization of resources and essential services, along with the inundation of foreign products in detriment of national production and food sovereignty that results from the signing of the agreement with the U.S. Because Central America lives from its agriculture, we insist that food sovereignty is not a merchandise to be sold or to be negotiated.
The implications of the CAFTA-PPP-FTAA-WTO processes are all the more alarming as they can only aggravate the already disastrous social situations resulting from the continuous submission of our governing elites to the Washington Colonization Consensus. We therefore commit ourselves to deepen ongoing resistance characterized by diverse forms of struggle. We will continue to mobilize, in an increasingly coordinated and sustainable manner, our own societies so as to block the advance of corporate globalization and in order to articulate alternative proposals contributing to the construction of another Central America.
We
have agreed upon the following Action Plan:
*
Monitor, in a critical manner, the TLC-PPP-FTAA-WTO negotiation processes
*
Organize popular mobilizations, forums, educational campaigns and protests acts
in relation to these negotiation processes.
*
Give priority to fighting the privatization of water
*
Support the convening and participation in the 4th Mesoamerican Forum to take
place in Tegucigalpa, Honduras (21-23 July)
*
Support the signing petitions against CAFTA, FTAA and the WTO
*
Organize protest and organization events during and before the WTO Ministerial
Meeting in Cancun, Mexico (9-14 September)
We
call upon all Central American social organizations to subscribe to this call
and to contribute to the Action Plan. At the same time we express our solidarity
with the struggle of Latin American peoples, in particular the people of Peru
that today is subject to government repression.
NO
TO THE FREE COLONIZATION AGREEMENTS
ANOTHER
CENTRAL AMERICA IS POSSIBLE
CENTRAL
AMERICAN POPULAR BLOC
Follow signatures from the social movements from Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica and Mexico.