FTA ronde in Guayaquil, Ecuador
CONFEUNASCC / JTNP - 26.10.2004 11:18
From the 25th till the 29th of October 2004, the fifth round of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the United States and the Andes countries will be held in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Social Movements rise up and demand a national referendum
To the national and international press and the people in general
The FTA (Free Trade Agreement) and the Andes region
From the 25th till the 29th of October 2004, the fifth round of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the United States and the Andes countries will be held in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Social organisations have already said they will not accept an FTA with the US and have started the recollection of firms to demand a national referendum about the FTA. At this moment it is the political and and economical elite which decides for the rest of the country and with a referendum the Ecuadorian people can decide themselves if they want an FTA with the USA or not.
At this very moment and oppossing the FTA, social organisations from both rural and urban areas, like the CONFEUNASSC, FENACLE and FENOCIN, are organising a parallel ‘Forum of Andean Labour” in Guayaquil, with the goal to discuss the impacts of the FTA for the labour rights that our constitution holds.
In this Forum, representatives of the involved countries, like Colombia, the United States and Peru are coming together to expose the different points of view they hold on the FTA negotiations. Within this event, a press conference will be held at 10:30 to inform society about the implications that firming the FTA would bring to the Andes region, especially Ecuador.
All social organisations, being part of the “Forum of Andean Labour” convoke all people to assist at the demonstration, being held Wednesday the 27th at 14:00, which leaves from the University Campus, Faculty of Physical Eduaction.
For more information please contact
Web: www.movimientos.org/cloc/confeunassc-ec
What are the impacts of the FTA in Ecuador?
1. With the FTA indigenous people and farmers are forced to switch to working on monocultures, to use transgenetic seeds fabricated within US laboratories and to use in an indiscriminated manner the chemical products that harm the soil, poison the water and bring diseases to animals and human beings like cancer and alergies.
In Ecuador may happen the same as in Mexico, where they signed an FTA (NAFTA) with the USA in 1994. Within that country the farmers and indigenous people have suffered robbery, displacement and even contamination of their millenary mais plants with transgenetical seeds.
2. With the FTA all rights that our Political Constitucion of the Republic of Ecuador holds, shall be eliminated. Collective Rights of the Indigenous People and other Ecuadorian laws shall be swept away for the interests of transnational companies and the North American Government.
3. The FTA makes Ecuadorian men and women, especially the vulnerable groups within society, like workers, unemployed, artesans, indigenous people, farmers, black people and women and children, lose their constitutional rights
4. The FTA only garantizes commerce and entrance to our national market for transnational companies from the USA, as well as foreign investment.
5. The FTA in Ecuador only is beneficient for the big national companies, like the groups of Noboa, Isaías, Febres Cordero, Pinto, as well as for the daughter companies of big transnational corporations, for example those in the Oil sector.
6. The FTA makes way for the privatization of water, irrigation systems, air, electric light, telecommunication, education, health care, social security, petrol, mines and biodiversity, converting them in commodities so that transnational companies can have their profit and of which we have to pay the price.
7. The FTA permits the indiscriminated entrance of US – products in our country, which would destroy our own national industry and raise unemployment. Especially the agricultural sector is vulnerable, because of the enormous subsidies the US gives to its own agricultural industry as well as to other sectors.
8. The FTA will make the already insuficient national treasure only smaller, since the indiscriminated imports out of the US do not have to pay any taxes to get into the Ecuadorian market.
9. The FTA makes it possible that biological resources and ancestral wisdom of the communities and people can be registered as property by the transnational companies, so that they will be the owners of our territories. Land will be in the hands of even less people and transnational companies.
10. The FTA will bring first and foremost more unemployment, hunger, poverty, desnutrition and growth of our foreign debt.
11. The FTA is just another mechanism of the USA to maintain and deepen their hegemony and political and military control in Ecuador and the rest of Latin America.
12. The FTA is an economic strategy of the US government to impose a capitalist economy in a neoliberal fashion and in this way have their world dominance.
13. Signing the FTA by Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutiérrez will make him a close alley of the US government so that they will help him to stay in power. Guttiérez thinks of his personal benefits, but not at all in those of the people he says he represents.
14. The FTA will only stimulate national capital to leave Ecuador, since it is being treated in the same way as US investments.
15. The FTA garantizes only commercial visas for Ecuadorian bussinnes men and other people with money, but not all the opportunity for the Ecuadorian people to get a working visa.
For the sovereignity and autodetermination of the People:
Say no the FTA!
Vote No in the Referendum!
Help us to collect firms!
For more information see also ecuador.indymedia.org
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