Original FTAA vision scrapped as people pour into Miami for anti-Free Trade protest
20/11/2003
- Opinión
The United States will try to paint the Miami
meeting of the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) as a success, but
the reality is that the anti-FTAA side has pulled off a victory.
This was the assessment of movement leaders as thousands of
protesters from all over the Americas converged on this city for
Friday's March for Global Justice and the Miami-Dade Country police
mounted a massive show of force to intimidate the opposition.
PROTESTERS NOT INTIMIDATED
That the people were not cowed was evident at the "Gala for Global
Justice" on the evening of Wednesday, November 19. Opposition to
the FTAA and people coming together for "another world" was the
theme of event, which featured a program of music and speeches from
activists from throughout the Americas.
Representing the US labor movement in the program, Leo Girard,
president of the United Steelworkers Union, declared, "We will not
let them steal our sovereignty. This is not just about trade but
also about investment and privileges for greedy investors and
financiers. This fight is a fight for our children and
grandchildren." He singled out the contribution of student
activists against sweatshops, telling the story of how earlier in
the afternoon, "on the way to Guzman Park to attend the People's
Forum, we saw a group of students surrounded by cops and searched.
And guess what, hundreds of steelworkers surrounded the cops and
told them to let the students go. And they did." And that brought
the crowd to its feet.
WASHINGTON RETREATS ON FTAA
The big news on Wednesday, however, was the scrapping of the
original FTAA vision. "The US wanted a binding comprehensive
agreement with disciplines all the way through," said one official
delegate from a Latin American country who has participated in the
negotiations. "The draft ministerial declaration coming out of the
Trade Negotiations Committee clearly is a retreat from that."
Instead, the draft proposes a "flexible" process where governments
can decide to exclude some areas from FTAA negotiations for
liberalization even as other governments negotiate liberalization in
these areas. As the declaration unambiguously states, "Ministers
recognize that countries may assume different levels of
commitments…In addition, negotiations should allow for countries
that so choose, within the FTAA, to agree to additional obligations
and benefits."
This will allow Brazil and the other members of the Mercosur trade
area to withdraw from negotiations on investment, intellectual
property, government procurement, services, investment, competition
policy, and other areas they do not wish to subject to mandatory
liberalization. At the same time, it will allow the US to continue
its policies of massive subsidization of its agriculture by not
joining negotiations on agriculture. The result is what pundits
have called "FTAA lite" or "FTAA a la carte."
Essentially, the ministerial declaration is the one tabled by Brazil
at the Trade Negotiating Committee meeting in San Salvador last
July. As the Latin American negotiator put it, "Brazil was saying,
look, 2003 is different from 1994, when Clinton launched the FTAA
negotiations. Free trade policies have brought about bad results
throughout Latin America. People have ousted neoliberal
governments. There was no way the US was going to get the
comprehensive free trade agreement it wanted today."
To the surprise of many, the US agreed to the Brazilian compromise
a few weeks before Miami. But, according to the Latin American
negotiator, the alternative was another Cancun, referring to the
collapse of the fifth ministerial of the World Trade Organization,
owing to widely disparate positions between Brazil and its allies
and Washington, Canada, and their supporters. This was not another
high-profile setback the Bush administrator could afford coming into
an election year.
Despite the US stand-down, says Timi Gerson, a trade campaigner
with Public Citizen, it will paint Miami as a success. "They'll say
the train has not be derailed, as in Cancun, that it is leaving
Miami with nine boxcars or negotiating areas intact. What they'll
try to conceal is that those boxcars are empty because people
throughout the Americas have refused to go aboard." Activists
Caution Vigilance
To counter Washington's spin on events while calling for continued
vigilance among FTAA forces, the broad alliance Continental
Campaign against the Americas issued the following statement on
Wednesday, May 19, shortly after the appearance of the draft
declaration:
"We are witnessing in Miami the failure of the original FTAA
project, and at the same time the emergence of a new and perhaps
more dangerous proposal for negotiations.
"The United States will try and present the 'flexible' proposal to
move the negotiations forward as a success of the Ministerial
Meeting. But this is only a fa?ade…Miami has revealed that the
United States has lost its capacity to convince people of the
virtues of its 'free' trade project, and is using force to impose
its objectives, trying to isolate the governments of the continent
that are proposing a different vision."
To Brazilian trade organizer Fatima Mello, although the original
FTAA vision has been disrupted, "So long as the FTAA's framework
and basic principles remain intact, the imposition of neoliberal
trade policies will remain a threat, so it is important to oppose
even this watered-down version of the FTAA."
To cover its tactical retreat on the FTAA, US Trade Representative
Robert Zoellick announced on Wednesday that Washington would launch
negotiations for bilateral free trade pacts with the Dominican
Republic, Panama, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. To Sarah
Anderson, trade analyst of the Institute for Policy Studies in
Washington, the US move is a confession of weakness. "They're
admitting they can't get what they want via the FTAA, and that's
because people and governments are resisting throughout the
Americas."
*Walden Bello is executive director of Focus on the Global South
FOCUS ON TRADE
NUMBER 95, NOVEMBER 2003
https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/108863
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