By IPS Correspondents
MEXICO CITY, Nov 18 2003 (IPS)

A document proposing an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), produced by a broad coalition of civil society organisations, lacks specifics on mechanisms, institutions and timeframes for its implementation, say critics.

But they admit that it sheds light on the FTAA talks, from a different angle.

After years of protests, meetings, and ”popular votes” opposed to the FTAA, social activists are meeting this week in Miami to fine-tune their strategies and present the document ”Alternative for the Americas”.

The civil society gathering will run parallel to the Thursday and Friday meeting of trade ministers from the 34 countries negotiating the ambitious free trade deal.

The Eighth Ministerial Meeting of the FTAA aims to propel the talks past the discrepancies between some of the countries involved, especially Brazil and the United States, on thorny issues like farm subsidies, government procurement and investment.

The FTAA will bring together all of the countries in the Americas except Cuba in a free trade bloc that is to be created by late 2005.

The Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), which drew up the text, is a coalition of labour unions, environmentalists, family farmers, academics and citizen groups that represents more than 100 organisations throughout the Americas.

The HSA, which was created in 1999 ”to facilitate information exchange and joint strategies and action towards building an alternative, democratic model of development,” claims to represent roughly 45 million of the 800 million people of the Americas.

”We have been accused of failing to present concrete proposals against the FTAA, and of only being interested in boycotting the project. But that is not true. We do have proposals,” Héctor de la Cueva, a spokesman for the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) and a member of the HSA operating committee, commented to IPS.

According to Germán de la Reza, a researcher at several Mexican universities who specialises in integration issues, the Alternative for the Americas succeeds in calling attention to pressing problems like migration, gender issues and human rights, but fails to outline concrete, verifiable trade proposals.

”If the Alternative for the Americas were implemented – if that would indeed be possible – it would create many distortions,” de la Reza said in an interview with IPS.

More than two-thirds of the document is dedicated to social issues and reflections on what civil society sees as the negative effects of the ”neo-liberal” free market model that predominates in the region.

The document raises questions on human rights, the environment, gender, labour, immigration, the role of the state, foreign investment, international finance, intellectual property rights, market access, agriculture, services and conflict resolution mechanisms.

”No one can be opposed to the good intentions presented by the document, but we must say it fails to indicate how they can be implemented,” said de la Reza.

The Alternative for the Americas states that ”No country can nor should remain isolated from the global economy. This does not mean, however, that the current ‘neo-liberal’ or free market approach to globalisation is the only, much less the best, form of economic integration.”

”Recognising that the market is imperfect and does not address many needs – such as social justice, public services, and public security – the document calls for a stronger role of the state and increased regulation of the economy not only at the national but at the supra-national level as well.”

The ”dominant free market approach…argues that the global market on its own will allocate and develop the best possibilities for each country.”

But ”We argue that history has demonstrated that the market on its own does not generate development, let alone social justice. In contrast, we propose a world economy regulated at the national and supra-national levels in the interest of peace, democracy, sustainable development and economic stability.”

The HSA’s Rivas, who is also a member of the non-governmental Economic Research Centre for the Caribbean, admitted that the Alternative for the Americas may have shortcomings, but clarified that the document is ”part of a process of collective reflection.”

She said the document must be taken into account, because ”it sets forth civil society’s guidelines on continent-wide free trade, which we do not reject, but which we believe should follow a different course, one which also involves public input.”

In response to the demands and pressure from civil society, the governments involved in the FTAA talks agreed in 1998 on measures to make the negotiations more transparent and open the door to participation by civil society.

The FTAA secretariat organised a series of meetings to discuss the free trade initiative with social organisations, and created a channel through which civil society’s proposals could reach the governments. So far, the secretariat has received 170 contributions from organisations and individuals throughout the Americas.

Civil society’s influence has been important in the FTAA process, because it pulled the negotiations out of a state of near-secrecy, and made it clear that the governments will be held accountable for the social and economic effects of the accord, said de la Reza.

In their effort to monitor and influence the process, civil society groups have held an endless stream of protest marches and seminars, and produced hundreds of pages of documents discussing the proposed trade integration process.

They have also organised ”popular votes” in several countries, in which thousands of people have expressed their opposition to the FTAA.

”Yes to Life, No to the FTAA” is the theme that brings together groups opposed to the free trade initiative, which include trade unions, indigenous organisations, human rights and church groups, and leftist parties.

Activists maintain that the FTAA is a plan designed by corporate interests and the government in the United States to strengthen that country’s dominion over the people and countries of the rest of the Americas. They argue that it is just another expression of neo-colonialism.

De la Cueva said the social movement’s optimism regarding its chances of derailing the FTAA talks received a boost from the failure of the fifth World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference in Cancun, Mexico in September.

At the conference, a group of around 20 developing countries (the so-called G20), including Brazil, stood firmly behind the demand that industrialised countries eliminate the huge subsidies shelled out to their farmers, to the detriment of the developing world’s trade prospects.

In the end, the deadlock between blocs of WTO member countries made it impossible to reach a final agreement to move ahead on the multilateral trade talks.

”We hope the same thing happens in Miami and that the FTAA does not become a reality,” said de la Cueva.

But after an informal Nov. 8 meeting in Washington between delegates of several countries to discuss this week’s gathering of trade ministers, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said there were ”good foundations for success in Miami.”

It was reported that an agreement was reached in Washington to modify the original plan, due to differences between future FTAA members.

The option now being discussed would entail an FTAA with a more limited scope, which would move towards the liberalisation of trade at different speeds, depending on the interests of each country or bloc.

De la Cueva, however, said ”That would amount to an ‘FTAA light’, to which we are also opposed.”

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