Ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement and Dominican Republic w/US
CMI Guatemala – 3:14pm Jueves 10 Marzo 2005
http://chiapas.mediosindependientes.org/display.php3?article_id=112067Guatemala City, March 8th. 2005.- This week throughout Central America, ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement - CAFTA has been on the agendas of the National Assemblies. The CAFTA, based on the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States, is seen as a stepping-stone to the larger and more important economic prize, the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Throughout the region, popular sectors of civil society have mobilized to halt the CAFTA.
Negotiations for CAFTA were completed in January 2005 in Central America, and now the agreement needs to be approved by the national assemblies in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and the United States Congress.
The US congress Fast-tracked CAFTA in January 2003 with hopes of implementing the agreement during 2005 in order to open the doors for the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Alba Estela Maldonado a congressional deputy for the URNG stepped out of Tuesday's negotiations in the Guatemalan National Assembly to inform demonstrators of the pressures that the United States embassador has been placing on representatives.
On tuesday hundreds of women, farmers, indigenous and student organizations took to the streets of Guatemala City and other states, to protest the ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement - CAFTA with the United States, by the Guatemalan National Assembly. Among the concerns of popular organizations are US subsidized agriculture flooding the region, favored corporate rights and less labor rights, and disregard for environmental legislation. Mario, a passerby during Tuesday's demonstrations commented that the citizens of Guatemala are right in protesting, because the large corporations will benefit greatly, where to the contrary the small businesses in a lesser category will be broken.
Hector Perez Rojas, secretary for the congressional steering committee on the CAFTA explained why he is promoting the CAFTA in Guatemala despite tremendous negative consequences felt in Mexico after ten years of NAFTA. "In Guatemala we signed the peace accords in 1996. It was an accord where we did not make dates or conditions from day to day. Today the agreements are still maturing into implementation. In a way we believe that generally the two agreements will bring benefits to us and that the responsibility of this congress is to create preventive measures for the negative impacts of the free trade agreement and that they have social compensations so that the bad experiences that they've had in other places do not occur here."
Dora Regina Ruano a leader in the national union of health workers was one of the hundreds of demonstrators that blocked the doors of congress Tuesday. Demonstrators did not permit congressional representatives or lobbying groups to enter or leave congress during a stand off that lasted several hours after the first round of congressional debates on the CAFTA failed to produce the necessary quórum to pass the free trade agreement.
In an interview she stated "conrgress is trying to ratify in this moment as well as the general law on conscessions and the 9-2003 decree which gives Guatemalans access to generic medicines. We are worried about these being passed to the large transnationals. These are the reasons why we are gathered here and also to celebrate international women's day."
This morning the demonstrations continued in Guatemala City with an increased police presence cordoning off a five block perimeter around the congress so that demonstrators would not disrupt negotiations. Popular organizations in Guatemala hope to hold off the ratification of the CAFTA until after a national strike that has been called for next Monday and have demanded a national plebiscite on the free trade agreement.
tlc 2005 | tlc | www.agp.org