Bringing It Down Implies Great Challenges, Sustains Joao Pedro Stédile, of the Landless Peasants Movement (MST) of Brazil The FTAA is a survival strategy for imperialism, an expression of the deep crisis that weaves through capitalism and to bring it down we have to take on great challenges, beginning with the strengthening of massive popular resistance. This idea was formulated by Joao Pedro Stédila, one of the most prominent leaders of the Landless Peasants Movement (MST) of Brazil, during the first speech of the Third Hemispheric Conference of the Struggle Against the FTAA, which is taking place in Cuba In this speech, Joao Pedro, in addition to analysing the nature of the FTAA, took stock of the situation in which today we find the struggle of the social movement against this free trade tool, and proposed a series of challenges to re-launch new strategies to face this danger to the peoples of Latin America It is important to mention that the leader of the MST began his speech by thanking the Cuban people and the Cuban revolution for their contribution to the generation of processes of unity among the peoples of the hemisphere and for the help and solidarity that they have given to Brazil and other peoples of Latin America With respect to the nature of the FTAA, he explained that it is related to the crisis of capitalism, because the US economy and the transnational corporations are going through a very difficult situation. "They are hegemonic, but they are in crisis and that makes them more dangerous," he advised. For this reason, they are moving their pieces to find exit strategies to their process of accumulation of capital and they require captive markets for their companies, he remarked He added that the transnationals seek to control services and energy sources, as well as agriculture. "Today it's oil, and tomorrow biodiversity and the seeds to impose a single pattern of food, through transgenic foods. To this add the control of the war industry and the need to seek out markets for that, starting wars in distant parts of the world," explained Joao Pedro To impose the FTAA, the United States needs to disband the nation- states of poor countries, destroy national sovereignty and the culture of the people, for which purpose they also unleash an ideological battle presenting free trade as the only way out of poverty. This is a false idea that the social movement should fight against With relation to the situation of the current struggle against the FTAA, Joao Pedro remarked that Latin America should prepare itself to win important battles in the next few years to bring down imperialism, because the United States has several strategies of domination. Now we talk about a "reduced FTAA" or "FTAA lite" and to accept them would be a mistake, because it could reduce the level of popular resistance that has been accumulated until the present. The battlefield of the social movement is the street, and the battlefield of the progressive governments are official meetings. They should help also to call together new social forces to combat the FTAA. We also have to fight hard against obsequious governments to demand transparency and a greater debate in the media because that helps the population to educate itself and become conscious of the danger that is in play In another part of his speech, the MST leader analyzed the role that Brazil's current government plays in relation to the FTAA and explained that there is no unified project, which explains the ambiguities which can be seen in this area. He added that that also is a product of the complex state of the Brazilian economy, which depends on transnational capital, and the decline of the mass movement since 1989 He added that the problem is not the nature of the Lula government. "The Brazilian society is living through a crisis of the project model because neo-liberalism didn't solve its national problems. We have to develop a popular project to recover our sovereignty and rebuild the economy in the function of our interests. The struggle against the FTAA is marked in this context," he sustained. In the final part of his speech, Joao Pedro formulated a series of proposals, as part of the challenges to create continuity for the struggles against the FTAA, among which stand out the need to have our own agenda of political initiatives, the strengthening of information and communication strategies with the people to unmask the nature of the FTAA, and the involvement of other social sectors in this struggle like local governments, national industries, the middle classes, and universities, among others Likewise, we ought to bring together our campaign with other forces outside our hemisphere which struggle against war, militarization and the IMF; to achieve unified mass actions in the whole continent, because national calendars are no longer enough; and to struggle against the re-election of Bush – "the new Hitler" – with protests against US embassies To debate and build alternative proposals to the FTAA is another great challenge, so we should persist in the construction of popular projects in our own countries, because "the struggle against the FTAA is continental, but the trenches are national," affirmed Joao Pedro, who concluded his talk demanding that we be alert and in solidarity with the Cuban and Venezuelan people, "because our obligation is to defend them at any cost." * José Coronado. CCP- Minga Informativa