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REPORTS: ARGENTINA |
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Debating
the Best Way to Oppose the FTAA
Marcela
Valente
BUENOS AIRES, (IPS) - As the deadline
for the launch of the Free Trade Area
of the Americas (FTAA) edges closer,
public opposition to the project for
hemispheric integration is growing in
Argentina, and with it the debate on
the best way to challenge the
free-trade initiative.
From Nov. 20-26, the ''No to the FTAA''
coalition, which links a growing
number of local organisations, will
invite people to ''vote'' on the free
trade project, Argentina's foreign
debt, and plans for joint Argentine-U.S.
military exercises in this Southern
Cone country -- phenomena that the
umbrella group sees as tightly linked.
''The three focuses are
interrelated,'' economist Julio
Gambina, with the Argentine branch of
ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of
Financial Transactions for the Aid of
Citizens) and one of the coordinators
of the planned ''popular vote'', told
IPS.
Gambina said Plan Colombia, an
anti-drug and counterinsurgency
strategy financed by Washington, is in
line with U.S. interests in increasing
military control in the ''tri-border''
region where Argentina, Brazil and
Paraguay intersect, the installation
of military bases in Ecuador and plans
for war exercises in Argentina.
In 2000, Ecuador leased its Manta air
base to the United States for 10
years, to be used by U.S. aircraft
participating in Plan Colombia.
Last month, the Argentine government
of Néstor Kirchner turned down a U.S.
request for guarantees of legal
immunity for U.S. personnel who are to
take part in the joint military
exercises, code named ''Aguila III''.
Gambina said that once the United
States strengthens its influence in
the region through the continent-wide
free trade accord, it will gain
greater control over strategic natural
resources like oil and water.
Washington's insistence that there are
''terrorist cells'' in the tri-border
region is merely a cover, according to
the activist, for its eagerness to
control the area in the Southern Cone
region that boasts the Guarani
aquifer, one of the planet's biggest
reserves of fresh water, with an
extension of 1.2 million square kms.
The U.S.-sponsored FTAA will create,
in 2005, a free trade area comprised
of 34 countries of the Americas (all
of the countries in the hemisphere
with the exception of Cuba): a total
market of 800 million people with a
combined gross domestic product (GDP)
of over 11 trillion dollars.
ATTAC-Argentina, the Argentine Workers
Central trade union, the Movement of
Workers of Recuperated Companies, the
Association of Small and Medium
Companies, and the Mothers of the
Plaza de Mayo are just a few of the
hundreds of social and political
organisations and trade unions taking
part in the ''No to the FTAA''
campaign.
''The FTAA is not a free trade
project, but a fundamental element in
the U.S. project of domination and
plunder of natural resources, aimed at
turning Latin America into a market of
consumers and suppliers of natural
resources,'' says one of the
coalition's documents.
The United States wants to impose
standards that would hamper the
ability of countries in the region to
exercise control over foreign
investment and would ensure that
transnational corporations receive the
same treatment granted to
nationally-owned small and medium
firms, the group argues.
The government of leftist President
Luiz Inácio ''Lula'' da Silva in
neighbouring Brazil has placed the
FTAA, and efforts to ensure more
equitable free trade conditions, high
on its foreign policy agenda.
Before taking office in January, Lula
expressed his opposition to an FTAA
that would merely amount to an
annexation of Latin America by the
United States. His government has been
outspokenly critical of the progress
made by the talks.
The ''No to the FTAA'' coalition,
created in April 2002, has grown in
step with the Argentine public's
interest in learning about the details
of the FTAA.
In a Gallup poll carried out in
Argentina in 2001, 57 percent of
respondents said they did not know
anything about the plans to build an
FTAA. Of the remaining 43 percent,
half said integration with the United
States would do ''little'' or
''nothing'' to benefit their country.
In another Gallup poll conducted this
year, only 16 percent of those
surveyed supported the plan for
hemispheric free trade.
The free trade deal is to enter into
effect on Jan. 1, 2005. But the
governments of Argentina, Brazil and
Venezuela have indicated a willingness
to extend the timetable, in order to
achieve more balanced integration.
Civil society, meanwhile, is becoming
more and more involved in the debate
on the content of the negotiations and
the agreement.
Next week, the Roman Catholic Church
bishops in Argentina will decide
whether or not to issue a call en bloc
for the faithful to take part in the
''No to the FTAA'' popular vote, which
has already received the support of
several bishops.
In early September, the Catholic
bishops of the Mercosur (Southern
Common Market) countries -- Argentina,
Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and
associates Bolivia and Chile -- met in
Montevideo, Uruguay, and issued a
statement describing the FTAA as a
''neo-colonialist'' plan that will
hurt the poor in Latin America and
will not respect the sovereignty of
nations in the region.
Eleven million voters expressed their
views on the FTAA in an informal
popular vote held last year in Brazil.
''In Argentina, the equivalent of that
level of participation would be 1.5
million voters. But we aren't
interested in how many people
participate, but the fact that a
campaign is being carried out to
clarify what the FTAA will mean,''
said Gambina.
According to a study released in May
by the Fund for Economic and Social
Development (FUNDES) -- a network that
provides advice and support to small
and medium-sized companies in Latin
America -- the FTAA will pose a risk
of 7.9 on a scale of zero to 10 for
small export companies in Argentina,
which will have to compete with U.S.
products.
But while the organisations taking
part in the ''No to the FTAA'' vote
are united in their opposition to the
free trade initiative, they do not all
agree on the best way to put up
resistance to the project, the
arguments for opposing it, the
relationship that should be maintained
with governments in the region, or the
scenarios where the debate should take
place.
For example, the Citizen Participation
Forum (FOCO), a member of the ''No to
the FTAA'' coalition, is willing to
participate in debates that include
governments and multilateral financial
institutions like the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB).
The government of left-leaning
President Kirchner in Argentina and
the Lula administration in Brazil have
set forth several loud demands, and
civil society ''must strengthen these
actions,'' the president of FOCO,
Jorge Carpio, told IPS.
''Another kind of integration is
possible, based on other foundations,
which should impose a curb on big
corporations. But we also insist that
the debate should take place in all
forums and on all fronts, and that we
must not stand apart and criticise
from the outside as other
organisations do,'' said Carpio,
alluding to ATTAC.
It is important to inform the public
by holding a popular vote, but it is
also important to participate in
forums like the one that FOCO and the
IDB convened in October, under the
theme ''Civil Society Participation in
the Mercosur and Trade Negotiations'',
said the activist.
The Civil Society Consultative
Council, sponsored by Argentina's
Foreign Ministry to channel the
participation of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) in the FTAA
talks, is another route for
involvement in and influence over the
debate, Carpio added.
Since Kirchner took office in May, the
Council, which was virtually inactive
until then, has opened its doors to
proposals from NGOs, and put the
official documents from the
negotiations, which were previously
kept secret, at their disposal.
But in ATTAC's view, participation in
such forums ''amounts to
legitimating'' the negotiations, which
it believes should simply be rejected
outright.
''They call on us to take part in a
democratic debate on this, and then
they ignore our proposals, and do
whatever they want,'' said Gambina,
referring to the IDB.
The popular vote is a kind of
information campaign on the impact
that the FTAA will have on the region.
Ballot boxes will be set out in public
spaces, the poll will be carried out
without a list of voters, and children
will also be invited to participate.
A group of delegates of the ''No to
the FTAA'' coalition, headed by Nobel
Peace Prize-winner Adolfo Pérez
Esquivel, a prominent Argentine writer
and activist, met with Kirchner in
September. Since then, public hearings
have been held every week in different
provinces, as well as debates in city
squares and workshops and discussions
in schools and universities.
The popular vote will partially
overlap with the Nov. 20-21 meeting of
trade ministers of the Americas in the
U.S. city of Miami, Florida, which
will review the progress made in the
FTAA talks.
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