Hemispheric Meeting to Oppose the FTAA Concludes in Havana

The four-day hemispheric meeting against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) which concluded in Havana on November 16 was attended by more than 700 people from 34 countries. Delegates were predominantly from Latin America and the Caribbean. Others, including large numbers of anti-globalization activists, came from Canada and the United States, as well as from some European countries. The participants included representatives from regional non-governmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, farmers, women, intellectuals, students, religious and social organizations, solidarity organizations, and parliamentary bodies. Delegates held discussions and organized against the FTAA which is seen by many as Washington's latest attempt to annex Latin America and the Caribbean.

This hemispheric meeting in Havana was a follow-up to the Peoples' Summit in Quebec City in April, which ran parallel to the Third Summit of the Americas. At that meeting, 34 regional governments, excluding Cuba and acting without the consent of their constituents, agreed that the FTAA should be fully implemented by the year 2005. Delegates to the meeting in Havana agreed that this decision has created an added urgency for the peoples of the Americas to organize against the FTAA.

Both the opening and closing sessions of the meeting were addressed by Cuban President Fidel Castro. In the course of the four days, he noted that the movement to oppose the FTAA is taking on steam. The growing movement against neo-liberal globalization, he said, has organized huge demonstrations in Seattle, Quebec and Genoa and frightened the owners of the world. He added that the participants in this hemispheric meeting would go back to their own countries even more strongly opposed to the FTAA.

Delegates recognized that the threat posed by the FTAA is an all-encompassing one. In order to take over the economies of the other countries of the Americas, the U.S. has to suppress the peoples' national identities and cultures. In order to turn those nations over to the interests of the huge commercial, industrial and financial consortia, to exchange their national cultures for Pizza Hut, MacDonalds and Coca-Cola, it has to destroy the social structures and age-old traditions of community decision-making that exist in the countries of the Americas. The presentations and discussions at the hemispheric meeting also focused on the broad scope of dangers posed by the FTAA in order to equip the delegates to carry on the struggle even more effectively.

Given that the FTAA is already in motion through NAFTA, it was agreed that the people of the Americas need to develop new strategies to prevent further encroachments like increased foreign debt, the sale of public enterprises or the application of World Bank and International Monetary Fund programs.