Hard to believe, but the triumph over the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) obtained 10 years ago in Mar del Plata was in fact an enormous victory that has not been sufficiently owned or assessed by the social and popular movement or by the left or the international progressive sector. The story of the struggle and the alliances that made possible the defeat of one of the principal US strategic projects is little known, and perhaps for that reason the attendant lessons have not been sufficiently shared, reflected upon, appropriated, by the popular movement as reference points for current and future battles. The celebration marking the ten year anniversary of this victory would seem to allow for such an opportunity.

What was the FTAA, and what was its significance?

To start with it is important to remember how the FTAA was created and what was at play. It was during the government of George Bush (senior) that Washington launched the so called Initiative for the Americas. The objective was clear: in the context of heightened competition from European and Asiatic powers for global hegemony, it was to consolidate US economic and political hegemony in the Americas, and in this way ensure for itself the control and privileged access to that extensive market and its natural resources. In addition the US could use the continent’s work force as a cheap labour platform enabling it to compete globally while also ensuring a prime position for competing in its own US market; and, of course, guarantee political and military security in what it considered as its ‘back yard’.

The first major step in consolidating the Initiative for the Americas was the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a treaty that was a model for neoliberal globalization in a number of ways. A treaty serving as a monument to inequality, signed sporting ‘equal’ rules for countries so unequal in their level of development as Mexico and United States. A treaty that is not only about trade as it notably lays down the rules for investments and services. NAFTA, it is almost redundant to mention, has had its worst impacts in Mexico where it has been a key reason for the great social disaster that the country is living through, particularly in the rural areas, but also labour sphere where the promise of more and better jobs has instead led to the result of fewer and worse jobs where constantly falling salaries has short circuited the promise of a higher standard of living. Furthermore the precarious nature of life and work has underpinned the horror of violence and insecurity that is the scourge of the country today.

NAFTA also has meant a downward spiral for workers in the United States and Canada. In fact, we can see clearly now that the question being asked towards the beginning of the negotiations about which country would win and which would lose was not the correct one. The right one was: who in each country would win and who would lose. The answer today is evident: the transnationals along with a few local wealthy families have won while the working people from the three countries have lost.

To institute the FTAA the plan was to take the NAFTA model to a hemispheric level. Indeed NAFTA had hardly come into force in 1994 before the US went ahead with its strategy and called for the first Summit of the Americas to be held in Miami, in order to kick off the effort to get a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). In May of 1997 at the Trade Minister’s Summit in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, it became clear that this trade initiative would face challenges particularly from the subregional bloc known as Mercosur. Nevertheless, at this meeting there was agreement to hold the Second Summit of the Americas the following year in Santiago, Chile as the moment to formalize the start of negotiations for the FTAA.

The FTAA represented the strategic framework for the US to put together the pieces of the neoliberal puzzle that was already going forward in all corners of the continent. It was being designed and negotiated following a model that to one degree or other was to be followed by the different regional and world economic agreements: a) Following the dictates of the transnational corporations and the great powers while ignoring the real need for development and what it takes for countries to complement one another, b) Foregoing any real consultation with or input from society, that is to say in an entirely anti-democratic way, and c) Ignoring what has come to be called the Social Dimension, that is the inclusion of the protection or the satisfaction of the social needs and upholding of rights given the impact to be expected under this opening and form of integration.

The FTAA, in summary, proposed to impose on the continent an economic constitution under the hegemony of the US in the context of of its rivalry with other economic powers, to the detriment of peoples’ sovereignty and the social rights of the majority. The FTAA was nothing more than subordination for Latin America and the Caribbean in being integrated into the US economy with an indiscriminate ‘opening’ conferring no real advantages, and a downward trajectory for the conditions of life and work accruing from ‘standardization’ for the South as well as in the North.

How the struggle and the victory were built

a) The Hemispheric Social Alliance. It should be noted that it was also in Belo Horizonte in 1997 that a social process got under way that would end up becoming a formidable obstacle to US plans. In a completely unheard of way, some of the continent’s most important movements and social organizations gathered there and proposed a level of linkages that had been unthinkable earlier as part of the Forum Our America that was organized by the CUT, the Landless Workers Movement and Brazilian NGOs. This was a meeting that was held in parallel to an ORIT (Inter American Regional Workers Organization, now defunct) gathering, and that was, for the first time, open to unions not affiliated to the ORIT.

The NAFTA experience without a doubt had an impact not only because of the outcomes but also because of the weaving of social resistance networks. The pulling together of multisectoral networks in Canada, Mexico, and the United States to fight NAFTA, and the organized trinational actions suggested a model that could be followed to oppose the FTAA. In effect, it put on the agenda the potential and possibility of bringing together movements from north and south, that is to say a social alliance able to really operate at a continental level.

Of course there were difficulties in pulling things together given the heterogeneity represented by the movements. Whereas in the case of the union movement there had only been a limited call for the inclusion of a Labour Forum as part of the official negotiations, the broader discussion in Belo Horizonte led not only to the establishment of objectives that would carry a deeper democratic sense and be based on a broader social dimension, but also lead to a proposal for an alternative development model. The most notable element of this coming together, however, was the ability to arrive at a common understanding that the bulwark for carrying out any strategy lay in concrete steps being taken in order to change the correlation of forces, and that this would only be possible by pulling together the broadest and most representative grouping of social forces from the continent with an agenda and a commitment to a common set of objectives and actions. With this in mind there was agreement to go forward in the construction of a great Hemispheric Social Alliance as the only way to build a viable social counterweight to the advance of “free trade” and neoliberal economic integration.

Here is where things got started - passing through different events, initiatives and meetings in Santiago, Costa Rica, Toronto, etc. - in which the key components of the opposition to the FTAA were clarified; the new basis for the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) was built; it started to have a certain structure without compromising its open, diverse and horizontal character; there was diffusion and education about the threat posed by the FTAA while simultaneously a social counterweight was built that was highly representative and diverse. And for the first time and with a great deal of success the HSA was able to coordinate actions amongst movements such as unions, rural workers, indigenous peoples, environmentalists, women, NGOs, etc.; working with a diversity of cultures and languages, organizations from North and South, overcoming not only prejudices and dogmas, but also bureaucratic tendencies, rivalries, sectarianism and other isms.

In addition, it is important to remember that this significant social alliance decided that it should stand on two “legs”, and by that it meant two elements that would help make it more cohesive and allow it to project its work more widely. One was the putting together of the document Alternatives for the Americas, in other words a programmatic document that profiled the alliance not only as oppositional but also with the capacity to propose an alternative development and integration model, a document that was considered to be in a permanent process of construction as it was enriched at different stages and ended up playing a critical role at various times. The other was the elaboration of the Hemispheric Social Charter, that is the basic underpinnings to social rights that should be guaranteed in whatever process of integration; but in this case although there were several important efforts made, a consensus was not achieved.

b) The Peoples’ Summits. Notwithstanding the magnitude of the challenge represented by the initiating of the HSA, from the same meeting in Belo Horizonte a call went out to hold the first Peoples Summit of the Americas in April 1998 in Santiago, Chile, parallel to the summit being held by the Presidents; if these presidents were holding their summits behind their peoples’ backs, they should make themselves present in order to determine their own destinies. The Peoples Summits sought to convene the broadest possible social representation, even broader than that of the HSA. It was begun not as a closed shop but as an open and inclusive organization. That is how the Peoples Summits were born - although in later years they went off course a bit by the abuse of using this title for any minor event.

The First Peoples Summit of the Americas held in Santiago was carried out successfully with more than a thousand participants from almost all of the continent’s countries representing the most diverse social sectors divided up into ten sectoral and thematic fora, while searching for intersectoral connections. This Summit was able to flag the importance of building the HSA as a viable initiative, but one facing significant obstacles given the immense diversity in starting points of a social, cultural, political and ideological nature.

The Second Peoples Summit of the Americas was held in 2001 in Quebec, Canada, once again in parallel to and in opposition to the one being held by the Presidents, and it represented an even greater milestone. This Second Peoples Summit was a leap forward and achieved an enormous social representativity given the participation of thousands of delegates from all the countries of the hemisphere. The accumulation of forces continued to advance. Notably this Summit became better known as the battle of Quebec - the most significant mobilization after the Battle of Seattle - because the opposition to the FTAA was demonstrated on the streets. They showered us with so much tear gas that it seeped into the official meeting place and almost closed down the governmental meeting. They were up above in the high part of the city while the Peoples Summit was held in the lower part. For all intents and purposes they were encircled by the popular sectors. Literally, those from below against those on high. The mobilizations that developed and culminated in a protest of more than 60 thousand people checkmated the official summit. At that moment in the official summit only the government of Venezuela, and to a lesser extent that of Brazil, worked to counter the hegemonic plans of the USA.

In Quebec, with regard to the HSA, a common understanding was reached that the FTAA could not be ‘fixed’, that is to say a clearly oppositional/alternative vision to this hemispheric “free trade” project (given that up until this point some in the union movement had been wavering). As the events in Quebec demonstrated there was a growth in the capacity for taking action along with a greater social representativity based on the growing participation of social and national actors that had not here to for been involved in this struggle. In the months following Quebec this trend proved to be increasingly significant.

The Peoples Summits of the Americas were key moments not only in confronting this neoliberal paradigm but also in the accumulation of strength by grass roots forces, as would be confirmed in Mar del Plata a few years later on.

c) The Popular Consultation and the Continental Campaign. In Quebec, despite the significant advances, we decided that the great degree of representativity that had been achieved was not enough, that the information about and the struggle against the FTAA had to reach ever broader sectors of the population, organizations membership base, and that we should promote a greater involvement by members of the population so that their voices could be heard directly and not only through their organizational representatives. To that end we decided to launch an initiative known as the Continental Popular Consultation that would help us, and also oblige us, to meet our previous objectives, and gain legitimacy in their eyes. A Continental Popular Consultation ensuring that it would be the people, excluded until now, who would decide.

In going forward later on with preparations for this Consulta it became obvious that it would not be possible to pull off a continental level plebiscite or facsimile within the given timelines, so it was reframed as a flexible, longer term process. In the end, the process was not only flexible and diverse, but also uneven in terms of results.

Discussion around this initiative led to underlining the necessity of not only holding a consultation but also about a full campaign to be built around it. This led to the launch of both national and hemispheric organizing initiatives that allowed for a greater number of social forces in each country to be involved which in turn led to the the creation of the Continental Coordination for the Campaign against the FTAA. In large measure it was built on the HSA’s structures but included more networks, organizations and countries, and it brought about a much more active dynamic. However it also meant that there was a fair degree of overlap, ambiguity or even duplicity, or a certain ‘schizophrenia’ according to some, between the role of the Campaign and that of the HSA.

One can confidently say that despite the problematics just mentioned, the initiative involving the consultation and the attendant campaign did achieve the objective of greater public participation and a higher visibility, introducing it to important popular sectors in various countries while building consciousness about its possibilities and possible consequences. In some regions it also contributed to an increase in multisectoral articulation allowing in turn a greater scope for more significant action while also linking to themes of importance to the popular sectors, etc. The struggle against the FTAA had a stronger base and more significant outreach than had been the case earlier on.

d) The Hemispheric Encounters of Havana and the ALBA. It is important to emphasize that, having achieved a level of unity and promoting the growth of the movement as mentioned above and following the Quebec Summit and the launch of the Continental Popular Consultation, a key actor publicly joined the struggle against the FTAA: Cuba. During the 2001 traditional May 1st celebrations in Havana, Commander and President Fidel Castro outlined his position against the FTAA and he gave his backing to the Continental Popular Consultation. In the early years of this struggle, given that Cuba was excluded from the Summit of the Americas process and the FTAA discussions of course, it monitored developments and decided that the country’s place was to be alongside the peoples of the continent in the struggle against a project that would end Cuba’s possibilities for sovereignty and self-determination. At the same time some early ‘resistance’ from a few conservative sectors began to melt away and, as we know, things have definitely changed.

When Cuba entered the fray against the FTAA it signified an active involvement from broad social sectors in many countries of the hemisphere that were guided by Cuba’s moral and political authority. In addition, Venezuela under the direction of Hugo Chavez, already resisting the FTAA in official circles, now up its involvement. Venezuelan and Cuban social organizations joined the ranks of the HSA and of the Consultation and the Campaign against the FTAA. The social and political spectrum of the alliance against the FTAA grew anew to encompass from more moderate segments through to the anti-imperialist left.

Due to these developments, a new space opened up for the social movements known as the Hemispheric Encounter Against the FTAA that starting in 2002 was held annually in Havana. With the facilities that Cuba was able to offer the Hemispheric Encounters became the space and opportunity for social movements from around the continent to exchange strategic reflections and define lines of action for the continental struggle, more broadly than in the coordination meetings, and not having to expend the energy required for Peoples Summits.

During this time period Chavez was launching the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas). Coming out originally from the work done around the Alternatives for the Americas initiative by the HSA, the ALBA soon took on its own dynamic and grew to become a platform/convergence of political forces and left-leaning governments centred around Venezuela and Cuba so far. Although it hasn’t involved all those governments that have to one degree or another taken their distance from Washington’s hegemonic pretensions, it represents a solid anti-imperial bloc and a key counterweight. The ALBA moved from words to deeds supporting economic projects promoting an integration alternative distinct from that of the FTAA project. Subsequently, as part of the ALBA framework there has been an attempt at social movement coordination.

Changes in the Continental Setting

Also at this moment the Campaign against the FTAA coincided with a new wave of popular struggles and resistance in the continent to neoliberal globalization. The victory over the WTO in Cancun in 2003 threw into question the neoliberal ‘free trade’ agenda and the institutions supporting it. To the mounting contradictions that were slowing down the FTAA process, and particularly relations between Mercosur and the US, one could now add the ‘Cancun effect’. There, the rise of a bloc of countries from the South (despite limitations and inconsistencies) demonstrated that it was possible to not have to blindly follow the great powers’ wishes and agenda, and it provided a more favourable terrain for southern nations facing the FTAA negotiations.

In this context in 2004 a summit of FTAA Ministers was held in Miami. The Declaration that the HSA agreed upon and released in Miami illustrates what was going on:

“The final Declaration of the Eighth meeting of FTAA Ministers in Miami has actually confirmed the failure of the initial FTAA project, despite efforts made to signal an end to the stalemate in the negotiations and the claim of a successful conclusion to the Ministerial talks, all in an attempt to erase the ghost of Cancun. The reality is that the lack of consensus evidenced at the WTO meeting in Cancun was also on display in Miami. It has been shown once again that the United States no longer is able to impose it complete agenda as a general ‘consensus’. Now the attempt is to have an FTAA ‘lite’ and ‘a la carte’, that is to say an FTAA minus perhaps some of its worst features but hoping to still move it forward to make the 2005 deadline and all the while leaving the door open to even more unequal bilateral negotiations.”

In other words, the US attempt at saving the core of its project was already in reverse gear while the resistance from Southern nations was on the increase.

A determining feature of this period was that the advances made by the social movement were translating into important changes in the political-governmental continental setting, specially in South America. In the case of various countries, directly or indirectly, the social movements where behind the arrival of left forces to government, ‘progressives’, anti-neoliberals or as stated in a consensus document of the HSA, “..that are distancing themselves from US hegemony” - however it isn’t the purpose of this document to go deeper into this aspect. To that wave joining Brazil and Venezuela both before and after Mar del Plata where Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay (briefly), Nicaragua, El Salvador and some Caribbean nations. Chile and Peru, although in some respects immersed in this wave, represent a frustrating chapter in this history.

This change process, the birth of the ‘Group of 20” (with all its limitations), the outcomes from Cancun and Miami, all were pointing us towards a ‘shift’ in tactics to giving greater importance to trying to influence the negotiations, particularly aimed at negotiators from certain countries (something that in reality had already been happening). Having been correct in criticizing and even boycotting the official “civil society forums” because of what they were, an exercise in simulation, in the lead up to the final and decisive FTAA meeting, there was a decision taken to participate, not as parastatal NGOs which were to be ignored, but instead bringing the full weight of the accumulated social sector representation to object to these negotiations and add to the many or few obstacles that certain negotiators put in the way of the FTAA.

The Final Battle in Mar del Plata

Finally it was decision time in Mar del Plata, Argentina. The official calendar indicated that it would be at this Summit that come hell or high water the birth of the FTAA would be approved. Instead it became the FTAA’s grave. The HSA and the Campaign against the FTAA called on all those who could to attend the Peoples’ Summit. In detailed discussions with ‘allied’ governments one could see the probable outcome. Nonetheless there was some friction evident between the social movements and ‘friendly’ government representatives - because at the end of the day despite however close they may get, the logic of the movements and those of the states can’t help but be different.

Finally it was time for the mobilization that preceded the final denouement. A train filled with social contingents and both Argentine and international personalities left Buenos Aires at night. Already in Mar del Plata were those from both Argentina and the rest of the continent who had answered the HSA’s call. Early on that frigid and rainy morning the contingents came together at the starting point for the demonstration. There was no lack of heated discussions, shoving, and trying to get to be at the head of the march; some arguing that those off the train were the ‘authentic/official’ ones; others stating priority should be given to representatives from all the countries that make up the HSA and who had been fighting the FTAA for years. Despite it all, and with all on board, the huge demonstration got under way, combative, joyous, multinational, multicultural, heading to an appointment with history. The sports stadium that received the marchers was filled to bursting. Shivering from the cold and damp, the assembled masses listened to Silvio Rodriguez, and then came alive when Chavez and Evo, both coming from the ranks of the movements, announced that the threat posed by the FTAA was over, “ALCArajo”. Blanca Chancoso of the CONAIE in Ecuador, speaking on behalf of the first nations and of all the social movements of the continent, welcomed the news. Seldom the case, but this gathering turned into a victory celebration.

Though with no official act to mark its passing, the official Summit indicated that the end had come for the FTAA negotiations. Eight years of struggle, of never before seen level of continental  articulation of movements, countries, cultures, ideologies, civil society an ‘friendly’ governments, had finally succeeded. The US and its FTAA had been defeated at every stage. A great victory in the annals of international social struggle, from which we have much to recover and to learn. What came next is another story.            

What came after the Victory

The victory against the FTAA strengthened the hand, at least of those countries in the South of the continent, and political drive of governments openly declared as left or al least moving out from under US control and away from neoliberalism, bringing a breath of fresh air to alternative integration projects of countries in the South. Particularly, the ALBA took on a new shine. And UNASUR could also prosper.

However, the empire did not call it quits. The US began to put into practice a new strategy that would substitute for the one that put all countries Washington’s control based on a multiplicity of bilateral-level agreements to include free trade, security, megaproject startups, new round of privatizations, etc., and including from outside the region. The TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) under way not only is pursuing geostrategic global objectives, among others to compete with China, using allied Latin American countries as pawns and never forgetting about the bloc of South American countries that have escaped its control. In sync with this plan and during all these years Washington has dedicated itself to put together a campaign to destabilize and discredit those countries.

The reality is that 10 years after the victory over the FTAA, the US has been able to achieve various of its objectives, reorder the correlation of forces in the continent to favour its interests, and initiate serious threats aimed at the processes of transformation in the South of the continent - and of course reinforce its hegemony in the North. Resulting in part from this strategy is the economic crisis, but also resulting in part from the contradictions to be found in the processes, which appear to be leading to the winding down of a cycle, ‘progressive’ some have named it, of social processes and governments that have broken away from neoliberalism, free trade and US hegemony. The coin is still in the air.

And a serious problem is that also in the social sphere the victory against the FTAA quickly led to demobilization and disarticulation, although not seen in every country where struggle and resistance persist, but rather at the continental level where the over all movement had been active. There have been some attempts to regroup, but these have been fleeting or partial, and a common thread or threads has yet to be found, as had been the case in the struggle against the FTAA and which led back then to a greater unity in the face of multisectoral and multinational diversity. It was this momentum that left or progressive governments rode to power. Now that the crisis and big capital’s plans threaten humanity and the planet even more, and in particular the few or many advances that the region has seen, it would appear to be more urgent and vital to find our way again, and to learn from the lessons that led to that victory.

(Translation into English by Rick Arnold)

- Héctor de la Cueva is Coordinator of the Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical (Mexico). Founding member of the Red Mexicana frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC) and first Executive Secretary of the Hemispheric Social Alliance.