Essays

This article appeared in UCSC's The Project, december 2003. It was part of a collaborative spread which also included a detailed timeline, articles on The Root Cause, police brutality, the socio-political profile of Miami, et al.

WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

Amid the manufactured drama of clashing titans of law and domestic terror-- oops, I mean democratic dissent-- the actual issues of contention often risk getting lost. (Not that that's a bad thing, from the standpoint of the powerful.) Nevertheless, since April 2001, the Free Trade Area of the Americas has shriveled from "NAFTA On Steroids" to "FTAA-Lite."

Originally intended to expand upon the premisses of the North American Free Trade Agreement (whose implementation in 1994 catalyzed the Zapatista uprising), the FTAA was to link the 34 countries of North, South and Central America, exempting Cuba, into a single trade zone. Although defenders of the proposal spin it as an economic community similar to the EU, what this means in practical terms is the further economic colonization of Latin America by U.S. corporations. (Monroe Doctrine, anyone?)

The proposed agreement is based on a key principle of the neoliberal market economy, namely profit. This means the privatization of services (eg health care, education); the commodification of survival needs (eg water, staple crops); and the elimination of local sovereignty wherever it conflicts with this principle. For example, Chapter 11 of NAFTA enables a corporation to sue a government that enforces environmental, labor or consumer safety standards, claiming loss of current or speculative profit. Among other things, this enables biotech corporations to flood markets with patented, mass-produced GM crops, with whose prices small farmers cannot compete. This forced dependence on imports eliminates regional autonomy in crucial food supply. In Mexico, it has meant the loss of livelihood and cultural integrity for thousands of campesinos and indigenous peasants.

Meanwhile, the erosion of commercial and financial borders is accompanied by the intense militarization of physical borders, as the U.S. acts to deter immigrants-- many of whose attempts to cross over from the south stem precisely from the poverty induced by its own hemispheric policies. U.S. military engagement in Latin America has a long history; now the emerging rhetoric of counter-terror masks the goal of securing access to oil and other resources, most blatantly in Colombia. The proximity of the FTAA and the SOA demonstrations enabled demonstrators to make this relationship explicit.

The FTAA was designed as a comprehensive, all-inclusive mandate. But at the talks in November, a coalitional counter-move spearheaded by Brazil obliged the U.S. trade delegation to settle for a two-tiered agreement in which all countries would sign on to some basic planks, yet would retain the ability to opt in or out of others, including the crucial clauses on investment and intellectual property that helped scuttle the WTO in Cancun. When the mainstream media and trade delegation spokespeople issued the pseudo-triumphant declaration that "we have an agreement," they conveniently glossed over the fact that it scarcely resembles the agreement sought when the FTAA was launched in Miami almost a decade ago.