Those attending the anti-FTAA conference came from a range of social protest and lobbying groups as well as a few peasant, trade union, and student organizations. The views expressed in conference sessions were representative of those of the dominant currents in the labor and radical movements in the Americas, from social democratic organizations to Communist Parties to liberal and bourgeois nationalist groups. In addition, there was a delegation from revolutionary Cuba, which hosted the conference.
The largest delegations came from Mexico, the United States, Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil.
The four-day conference heard talks and panel discussions on the current stage of negotiations around the FTAA and issued a call for demonstrations and forums to oppose it.
In opposing the FTAA, most speakers at the conference argued that the problem is a “neoliberal economic model” associated with the Republican administration in the United States and particular capitalist governments in Latin America.
The solution put forward by virtually all the speakers at the conference was the election of new governments, critical of “neoliberalism.” None explained that no capitalist government will be capable of stopping the imperialist drive to export capital, conquer markets and territories, and wage wars of plunder. It is not a policy “option” for the U.S. government but an inherent need of all imperialist powers. One way or another, the U.S. rulers will keep pressing the weaker capitalist classes of the continent and keep advancing toward the establishment of what they call a “free trade” area of the Americas.
The only alternative to this exploitation and oppression is the road taken by workers and farmers in Cuba, who 45 years ago broke the hold of imperialist domination in their country by making a socialist revolution.
Several representatives of Latin American radical groups discounted as “not on the agenda” such a strategy of organizing a movement of working people capable of taking power out of the hands of the capitalist class and embarking on a socialist course. They advocated a course of supporting a wing of the capitalist class in their own country that is supposedly “not dependent on imperialism,” as one delegate put it.
Speakers from the Alliance for Responsible Trade, Witness for Peace, and other U.S.-based groups argued for policies to “save our jobs,” echoing “save American industry” arguments used by U.S. employers to justify tariffs and subsidies that have been ruinous for Latin American and Caribbean nations.
‘Stop reelection of Bush’ course
Many speakers, both from the United States and other countries, advocated campaigning against the reelection of U.S. president George Bush as an urgent priority. One panelist, Cindy Domingo, an aide for a local legislator in Seattle, stated, “We must actively support a Democratic candidate that is responsive to the demands of the grassroots movement.” She insisted that “the traditional debate among the left about the lesser evil pales” beside the need to oppose the reelection of Bush. She and a number of other speakers—from the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and other countries—characterized Bush as a new Adolf Hitler.
The meeting took place at a time of growing economic crisis and sharpening conflict between the imperialist and domestic capitalist ruling classes, on the one hand, and working people throughout the continent, on the other. Many of these struggles were reflected in the discussions both on the floor of the conference and in the halls.
During the gathering, the Dominican Republic was shaken by a two-day general strike against austerity measures aimed at guaranteeing payments to imperialist bankers on the country’s foreign debt. (See article on front page.) There have also been working-class mobilizations in Mexico against the Fox government’s attempts to take steps toward privatizing the state-owned electrical industry, continuing land takeovers by rural toilers in Brazil, struggles by workers in Argentina against the ravages of unemployment, and the popular revolt in Bolivia that brought down the government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in October.
Concerned by this increased resistance and social instability, especially the rising struggles of workers and peasants in Venezuela, Washington has been stepping up its military intervention in the region. In Venezuela, working people have gained confidence through their struggles to implement a land reform law and other efforts to improve their living standards in face of the drive by the Venezuelan ruling class and U.S. imperialism to overthrow the nationalist government of Hugo Chávez.
U.S. intervention under the banner of the “war on terrorism” is expanding in many parts of the continent, from support to the Colombian regime’s repression against unionists and peasant leaders through the Plan Colombia counterinsurgency program, to the establishment of U.S. military bases in other countries.
Focus on elections in Brazil, Argentina
In this context, new governments have been elected over the past 15 months in several Latin American countries on the basis of promising some relief to working people. These include the governments of Workers Party leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Peronist Néstor Kirchner in Argentina. To protect the interests of their national bourgeoisies and deflect efforts by working people to act in their own interests, the governments of Argentina and Brazil have taken their distance from some of Washington’s policies. This was registered at several recent regional trade summits, most recently in Monterrey, Mexico, where these two governments, together with the Venezuelan government, led the opposition to elements of U.S. trade and other policies.
The elections in Brazil and Argentina were hailed by many delegates at the conference as a sign that “the left is making progress in Latin America,” as some put it. “We’ve left behind the hard times of the past decade,” said Víctor de Gennaro, general secretary of the Argentine Workers Federation (CTA), which supports the ruling Peronist party.
Others pointed to the election campaign of Schafik Handal, presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador, who is running on a platform of capitalist reforms, as an example of the road forward.
The conference heard feature presentations by Evo Morales, a leader of the Indian coca farmers in Bolivia and a parliamentary deputy of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS); Joao Pedro Stédile of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) of Brazil; and Argentine professor Atilio Borón, among others. Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba’s National Assembly, spoke about the campaign for the release of five framed-up Cuban revolutionaries locked up in U.S. prisons.
The closing session was addressed by Cuban president Fidel Castro. “Underdeveloped countries are not developing,” he said. “They are moving further away from development.” He cited a growing foreign debt by semicolonial countries that now surpasses $2.5 trillion, including $750 billion in Latin America.
Cuba, he said, was able to free itself from these conditions because of its revolution and “four and a half decades of struggle against this powerful empire.”
Castro answered the recent statements made by U.S. officials accusing the governments of Cuba and Venezuela of collaborating to destabilize governments in the region. He defended Cuba’s normal relations with the government of Hugo Chávez and explained that Cuba’s sending of thousands of doctors, teachers, and other volunteers to Venezuela is part of the internationalist course that has guided the Cuban Revolution for the last 45 years.
The conference adopted a final declaration and “action plan.” The plan called for a series of anti-FTAA protests and forums leading up to the next round of FTAA negotiations later this year, as well as protests against Bush’s reelection timed to coincide with the Republican Party convention in New York in August. It also supported a call for March 20 rallies in countries around the world against the war and occupation of Iraq.
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