indigenous peoples
Representatives of farmer organizations from Andean nations began a meeting in this capital on Monday to define actions and strategies to fight the free trade area with the United States (FTA).
Members of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE, in Spanish) are once more staging protests this Thursday to reject the signature of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with United States.
Indigenous movements are indeed a threat to the free-trade policies Bush is hawking, with ever fewer buyers, across Latin America. Their power comes not from terror but a terror-resistant strain of hope, so sturdy it can take root in the midst of Colombia’s seemingly hopeless civil war.
On March 6, six indigenous communities in the Cauca valley in southwest Colombia voted in a referendum to reject the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States.
The experience of the countries that have been put under the neoliberal policies and the FTA, the results of the economic opening imposed by the Government of President Gaviria, the process of negotiation between Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the USA, puts in evidence that the right to democratic and popular consultation and resistance is justified.
The New Zealand, Chile and Singapore governments are promoting a P-3
whose primary - and arguably only - beneficiaries are the transnational companies that
straddle two of the three countries, including opportunists who locate there to take advantage
of the deal. The greatest potential beneficiaries are the agribusiness interests of Fonterra and
Nestle as they promote their shared strategy to dominate Latin America’s dairy industry.
ARENA today stepped up its campaign against the proposed Chile/New Zealand free trade agreement, which forms part of the Pacific 3 (P-3) with Singapore, by launching a sign-on letter to the Prime Minister calling on her to end the negotiations.
A call for organizational sign-ons from the Central America is Not For Sale Coalition
Barring major turns, any deal emerging from the talks will be a disaster for most Colombians.
The Ecuadorian indigenous movement ECUARUNARI has called for a “great march” on Wednesday 27 October 2004 to protest against the negotiations carried out by Ecuador, Colombia and Peru with United States in order to sign a free Trade Agreement (FTA)
A tandem bicycle with a loudspeaker moves back and forth from one end of the massive indigenous protest march to the other, as the 50,000 demonstrators make their way along the Pan-American highway to the city of Cali in southwestern Colombia.
The Peruvian Congress has passed legislation to protect the country’s biodiversity by restricting patents on biological resources.
“Negotiating a free-trade agreement with the U.S. is not something one has a right to - it’s a privilege."
