This document contains a summary of a discussion about Latin America and the FTAA, as well as specific Latin America trade agreement. It contains a call to action, a season of action as well.

Latin America Solidarity

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the speaker who was supposed to attend the meeting and discuss the current political situation in Latin America was not present, the meeting elaborated on forthcoming mobilizations and international solidarity actions.

September 16th - Day of Protest for Agrarian Reform in Columbia.

On this day, peasants in Columbia will be making actions to call for an end to the industrialization of agriculture and the increasing concentration of land-ownership in the hands of fewer people. Since the recent elections took place, the degree of social and political repression in Columbia has reached new heights, so it is expected that these actions will meet with an immediate and brutal response. It is therefore really important that there are international solidarity actions to bear witness to this repression. There have been two calls for such solidarity actions, one from Via Campesina, and another from the CNC (a national organization of peasants).

People could try and contact Via Campesina groups in their own countries to see if they have an action planned, and if not to encourage them to do one. Columbian Embassies and Consulates are a 'natural target' - and demos or actions like this do not even have to be mass mobilized and spectacular in order for them to have some sort of impact. Even a small number of embarrassed people waving a barely-dried banner outside, can put diplomatic processes into action. Because they will have to register the action that took place. So anything is better than nothing, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem like at the time.

October 12th - International Tribunal of Coca Cola taking place in Brussels.

Nunca Mas (Never More) is an international tribunal that holds countries, corporations and institutions accountable for their human rights violations, and involves much well-documented evidence and witnesses. Coca Cola are being brought to trial for their collusion with paramilitary death squads in having trade-union figures working for Coke assassinated. The tribunal starts on the 10th of October in Brussels. It takes place in a space in the European Parliament that has been borrowed from sympathizers within the Green party, but they are holding some sort of event involving workshops and discussions on the 12th, involving many key figures within the field of Columbian solidarity. More information about this campaign can be found in the current FTAA issue of the Green Pepper ( http://squat.net/cia/gp).

October 27th to the 1st of November - Hemispheric counter-conference against the FTAA, Quito, Ecuador.

Without wanting to big it up too much, this could possibly be a really significant event in the downfall of the FTAA. In contrast to the horrifying changes of political circumstances in Columbia, much of the Andean region has been witnessing some incredibly inspiring, widespread and ungovernable social movements of peasants, indigenous peoples and other socially and economically marginalized sectors of society. All of these groups will be represented at the conference, and it represents a fantastic opportunity to consolidate and coordinate their resistance to the neo-liberal agenda being forced on them. The organizers have suggested that their medium term objective is to provoke a massive peasant uprising across the Andes.

The organizers of the event have asked for people to provide financial support - they are operating on an incredibly tight budget, and especially need money to fund some anti-FTAA caravan that is taking place around the continent. Secondly, to do solidarity actions in their own countries and thirdly, to come and attend the event.

A Canadian group is suggesting to use October 28th as an international day of action against stock-markets and other financial institutions for their role in the implementation of the FTAA, as this is the anniversary of a huge stock market crash (Black Tuesday) that took place in the 1920s.

"Season of Action"

Global season of Struggle- 16th of September to the 21st of December

Because of the proliferation of calls for international days of actions, people who were informally meeting in Strasbourg devised the idea of collecting together a number of such dates and events to encourage people to not only to take part and support each other's struggles, but also to explore and deepen the inter-linking of issues and analyses. The season now includes the events discussed in the Latin America Solidarity workshop, but also the NATO summit in Prague, the IMF/WB summit in Washington DC, the blockade of the school of Americas, Media Democracy Day, the WEF meeting in Salzburg and others...

The concept is experimental, but hopefully, it could be developed as well for ongoing seasons of action in the future. The call and the different dates will be finalized this weekend on the email-list created at Strasbourg, below you will find the current draft. If you would like to make comments or be on the discussion/coordination list, email kevin@eyfa.org We are also appealing for creatively inspired people who might want to design a poster to publicize it, and who have any other ideas about increasing the visibility of the season. Furthermore, we will ask the plenary whether the PGA webpage can be used as a coordination tool for this (and maybe upcoming) seasons, in combination with Indymedia sites.

Draft call for the GLOBAL SEASON OF STRUGGLE CONNECTING MOVEMENTS FOR EMANCIPATION

"...The money king is only an illusion. Capitalism is blind and barbaric.
It poisons the water and the air. It destroys everything.

And to the U'wa, it says that we are crazy, but we want to continue being crazy if it means we can continue to exist on our dear Mother Earth."

The U'wa indigenous people, after oil corporation Oxy was forced to withdraw from their land. Colombia, May 3rd 2002.

Several global mobilisations that will take from the 11th of September to the 22nd of November 2002 call on all people and movements to confront capitalism, militarism, racism, sexism, religious fundamentalism, environmental degradation and all controls and limitations on the freedom of communication and movement of human beings. We encourage you to link any actions that you undertake during this time to our mobilisations and all struggles against oppression. If you haven't planned any action so far for these months, then we invite you to act in solidarity.

Global days of action against capitalism have successfully challenged the legitimacy of many centralised power structures. Anti-capitalist networks have damaged the reputation and exposed the violence inflicted by despotic institutions and agreements. However, we need more than just actions against specific institutions in order to undermine all forms of domination and oppression. Fear is the main weapon that the global elites use to legitimise themselves and strengthen their stranglehold on the necks of all people who are poor, non-white or working for social change. If we fail to offset that fear, especially in the wake of 0911, we will face an accelerated social transformation towards outright fascism.

Autonomous, decentralised global actions combine our strengths and creativity around the world, but now is the time to connect protests and actions against specific dimensions of the web of oppression and show their interdependence. We therefore call on all people who value life and freedom to participate in a season of decentralised actions against oppression. We have chosen the period between the 11th of September (International Day against Video Surveillance and 1st anniversary of the beginning of the global war for absolute hegemony) through the end of September (WEF meeting in Salzburg and WB/IMF meeting in Washington) and end of October-beginning of November (FTAA Summit in Quito) to the 22nd of November (end of NATO summit in Prague) for this experiment of intense global emancipatory action. This is just one of many more steps towards the growing globalisation and interconnection of struggles, which should reinforce the construction of local alternatives. We expect this season of actions to contribute to relations of mutual support and to the broadening of perspectives after the 22nd of November. For this to happen, we ask you to:

• Connect any actions you have planned in this period to all other actions through www.emancipate.info [THIS IS A DOMAIN THAT WE CAN CLAIM, IF PEOPLE LIKE IT FOR THE WEB], or organise actions if you haven't planned any already in this period.
• Show active solidarity with each other in the face of repression.
• Report and reflect on other actions through independent media in your community and in this way strengthen our communication and our opposition to corporate and state media.
• Take this opportunity to learn, understand and take advantage of each others' visions, methods and tactics; both in our opposition to structures of domination and in the direct realisation of our ideals.
• Discuss ways to strengthen the connections between regions and fields of struggle through global long-term initiatives of cooperation (see web page).