TRADE-AMERICAS: Mercosur Unions Protest FTAA, US

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 7 2001 (IPS) - Thousands of Argentines, Brazilians and Uruguayans staged protests Friday against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) here as a two-day meeting of 34 ministers from across the Western Hemisphere got underway.

The demonstrators, convened by unions from the countries of Mercosur (Southern Common Market – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) for three different protests, did not hold back in their condemnations of what they consider the hegemony of the United States in the region.

The rallies resounded with slogans such as “Yankees out of Latin America!” “Fatherland, yes! Colony, no!” “Fight the plots of the White House!”

The pounding of drums and the crack of fireworks, multicoloured placards inscribed with words condemning the FTAA, and giant puppets caricaturing members of the US government characterised the demonstrations led by workers from the Mercosur countries.

Union activists told IPS they were pleasantly surprised by the number of people who turned out for the marches, a participation that “demonstrates the widespread attitude of rejection towards Washington,” said one labour leader.

The organisers admitted that their work had proved complicated because the FTAA seems to be a distant reality from the daily lives of workers.

“But the people realise that all that comes from the United States is not good for Latin America,” commented Jorge Silva, of Argentina’s Federation of Truckers, in a conversation with IPS.

For her part, Marta Maffei, secretary of the Argentine teachers’ syndicate, pointed out that “the people understand that this thing the United States is so jealously guarding is something that is not in their best interest.”

José Giardelo, of the Uruguayan petroleum workers’ union, told IPS that the union organisations within Mercosur are attempting to build a major social movement against the FTAA.

Wrapped in an Uruguayan flag, Giardelo added that the bi- continental integration initiative “is an accord that the ‘yanquis’ want to impose and it is going to bring misery, unemployment and deeper submission” to Latin America.

“If (the FTAA) as good as they say it is, if it is going to attract investment, generate wealth and employment, why are they holding negotiations in secret?” wondered Silva.

The truckers’ union is at the forefront of the dissident sector of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), the Argentine union central that called for the massive protest Friday in the Plaza de Mayo, outside the presidential palace.

Silva defined the process to create the FTAA as a “monologue,” referring to the hermeticism of the US-led negotiations that began in 1994, but have noticeably accelerated in recent months.

The advances in the talks were evident Monday in the preparatory meetings of assistant ministers and other negotiators, who overcame a series of contentious issues that had been obstructing progress on the trade liberalisation project.

The draft document they were discussing has yet to be finalised, but was handed over Friday to the ministers of foreign trade, who commenced their two-day plenary alongside representatives from the Business Forum of the Americas.

The mainstream CGT, which is more inclined than other unions to negotiate with government authorities during labour disputes, organised a march through the streets of Buenos Aires on Thursday, with the participation of at least 10,000 people.

The same anti-FTAA and anti-US slogans were heard Friday at a third demonstration, convened by the Congress of Argentine Workers (CTA) in the Plaza of the Congresses, where thousands of unionists from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay loudly expressed their rejection of the bi-continental trade integration process.

Víctor de Gennaro, the secretary general of the CTA, a union central comprised of the most outspoken syndicates, told IPS that the free trade proclaimed by the governments “is going to make the dependence of our countries (on the United States) irreversible.”

De Gennaro, who led a march to the venue where the hemisphere’s trade ministers are meeting, charged that while most of the Argentine people are worried about surviving, the officials “are signing secret accords that are going to cause them further suffering.”

Kjeld Jakobsen, secretary of international affairs for the Brazilian Workers’ Central (CUT), expressed a similar sentiment.

“Our interpretation is that these agreements will allow multinational corporations to make our countries more dependent, and generate higher unemployment and lower salaries,” he said.

Jakobsen pointed out that Brazil’s President Fernando Henrique Cardoso “has a progressive discourse for the rest of the world, but domestically he leads a neoliberal policy, very conservative, that attacks the rights of workers and gives away the sovereignty of our countries.”

Unionists from the CUT, the CTA and Uruguay’s PIT-CNT marched away from the Plaza of the Congresses shouting their slogans against the FTAA and the United States.

“All Argentina against the FTAA! Yankees out of Latin America!” sang a group of young members of the CTA, relishing the rhyme in Spanish.

“I am against the FTAA because I defend a just cause, which is to stand up against any kind of US invasion of our economy and our labour market,” Valmir Ferreira, of the Brazilian Federation of Air Transport Workers, told IPS.

The demonstrators, in general, support the immediate rejection of unionists’ participation in a process in which they would be the late arrivals, given the fact that nearly all the terms of the trade agreement have been established without their input, or that of any other sector of civil society.

Silva pointed out that the leader of the dissident faction of the CGT, Hugo Moyano, says that for some the FTAA may be “a tiny light of hope seen at the end of a tunnel, but for workers that light is a train that is about to run us down.”