February 5, 2002
Opponents of globalisation at the World Social Forum, a counter-summit to the World Economic Forum, are planning to take action against US proposals for a free-trade zone stretching from Alaska to Argentina. The proposed march against the Free Trade Area of the Americas that US President George Bush wants in place by 2005 marked the climax of the forum meeting in Brazil.
Activists see the plan to form what would be the world's largest single market as an attempt to impose US domination across the Americas by economic integration. The plan's supporters say it will increase trade and help lift Latin America out of poverty.
Trade unions and activist groups who met on Sunday said they would fight the plan by mobilising protests at every stage of the negotiations being held across the continent. Upcoming venues include Ecuador, Monterrey in Mexico and a summit early next year in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
"My country is the painful proof of the consequences of the neo-liberal model that the US wants to sell us through the free trade agreement," said Victor Mendivil of one of Argentina's main unions.
Argentina, which has defaulted on its $141bn public debt after nearly four years of recession, has been held up here as proof of the failure of freemarket economics and free trade the US touts as the best way for emerging markets to develop. Activists here label such policies "neoliberal", saying they effectively give unlimited market access to multinational corporations from rich, industrialised countries.
Similar campaigns against free trade were organised during negotiations leading up to the North American Free Trade Agreement, but they failed to prevent the agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico from being set up in 1994. Since then, Mexico's growth rates have rocketed, though the country has become increasingly dependent on the US as an export market.
This time, activists say that they have better chances of stopping, or at least watering down, the trade deal.
The Continental Social Alliance, a Mexican group, presented alternative proposals to the official draft of the trade deal, mainly in the areas of labour, environment, agriculture, investment and government procurement.
"Now people across the continent are more aware of the problem," said Karen Hansen-Kuhn of the Washington-based Development Group for Alternative Policies. She said the US congress approved the North American Free Trade Agreement with a majority of only 20 votes.
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