IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED!
Sign on Letter and Delivery Delegation
DEADLINE: THURSDAY, April 17 at 10 AM EST -- letter
will be hand delivered Thursday afternoon.
SUPPORT -- International Day of Farmers Struggle
---
Organizations and social movement groups from around
the world supporting small farmers, Including V�a Campesina
and El Campo No Aguanta Mas (Mexican peasants movement
"The Countryside Cannot Take it Any More"), are mobilizing
an international day of protest and education on April
17, 2003. Below is a list of countries where rallies,
teach-ins and forums will be taking place. This week
in the US representatives from El Campo No Aguanta Mas
are touring around the U.S. and Canada talking about
NAFTA and their campaign pressuring the Mexican Government
to renegotiate NAFTA's Agriculture Chapter. learn more
at: http://www.globalexchange.org/education/speakers/LessonsofNAFTATriNatio
nalTour.html
On the 17th there will be a series of rallies and protests
in front of the Mexican Consulates in many US cities.
ACTION:
The Sign on Letter included below will be hand delivered
by a solidarity delegation to the Mexican Embassy on
Thursday, April 17th at 2:00 PM EST. To sign on to
the attached letter email hfenney@ruralco.org
Contact Person: Organization: Contact email: Phone:
Location:
Join the delivery Solidarity Delegation: If you are
in DC and would like to join us in hand delivering the
letter to the Mexican Embassy please email hfenney@ruralco.org
or call 202-628-7160. We will meet in front of the Embassy
at 1:50 PM on Thursday and deliver the letter and voice
our solidarity with the struggling Mexican peasants
and the efforts of El Campo No Aguanta Mas (Mexican
peasants movement "The Countryside Cannot Take it Any
More")
ISSUE:
The efforts of Mexican peasant groups to reach an alternative
agreement on the agriculture provisions in NAFTA with
the Mexican government has been on going since March.
We continue to wait to see what path will be taken by
the Fox Administration and the peasants' organizations
to deal with the current crisis in the Mexican countryside.
It was reported last week that the Fox administration
agreed to ask Canada and the US to re-negotiate chapters
in NAFTA that deal with tariffs on white corn and beans.
Tariffs on these items are scheduled to end in 2008,
though import levels have exceeded quotas established
by NAFTA each year since 1996. Re-negotiation was one
of the principal demands of campesino groups during
weeks of dialogue with the federal government on the
rural crisis. However, it may not be much of a capitulation
on the part of the Fox administration. There have been
diplomatic signs for several months that Canada and
the US would not object to limited "adjustments" in
NAFTA agricultural chapters.
Agriculture is a major issue in CAFTA and FTAA negotiations,
and the US may be anxious to present a "reasonable"
position in the face of mounting grassroots opposition.
However, the Fox administration appeared to backtrack,
refusing to explicitly exclude corn and beans from NAFTA.
According to the government, tariffs on the two key
products should be submitted to a panel for study, with
a report due by the end of the year, and the ultimate
decision should be based on "the most convenient strategies
for the national interest." In addition, the federal
government was unable to clearly define an emergency
package and a multi-year budget that would provide increased
assistance for agricultural producers. Campesin@ groups
requested time to take the final 90-page document to
their bases for consultation before it is approved.
LETTER:
Dear Presidente Fox,
We write to you representing U.S. farmer and international
solidarity organizations, members of the religious community
and others. We express our full support for the campesino
organizations that make up the movement El Campo No
Aguanta M�s and other agrarian organizations who have
been participating in dialogue with the Mexican government
on the renegotiation of NAFTA.
Considering the severity of the economic and social
situation of the Mexican countryside, we feel it imperative
to express our solidarity with the Mexican farmers in
their efforts to establish a national strategy to reverse
the crisis of the Mexican countryside. This strategy
should include the renegotiation of the agriculture
chapter of NAFTA and the development of an emergency
aid package to offer immediate assistance to Mexico's
agricultural producers. The agriculture chapter of NAFTA,
as it currently is written, does nothing to benefit
small and indigenous producers, rural people or the
economies of their communities.
The benefactors of free trade are factory farm operations
and agribusiness groups such as Cargill, ConAgra, and
Archer Daniels Midland. The agribusiness industry receives
millions of dollars in taxpayer support from the United
States and uses this support to drive down prices until
small, independent producers can no longer survive�in
any of the participation nations. We find it unconscionable
that more than 600 farmers in Mexico are forced off
their land every day by the dumping of US and Canadian
agricultural products�at no benefit to rural communities
on any side of a border.
The campesino organizations have drawn attention to
their crisis. We write to tell you that the countryside
in the rural United States and rural Canada also cannot
bear it anymore. We urge you to put pressure on the
United States and Canada to renegotiate the agriculture
chapter of NAFTA and adopted a new agreement that will
protect the Mexican campesin@s as well as their brothers
and sisters in the United States and Canada. The North
American Free Trade Agreement has been devastating to
farmers across the Americas. Since its inception 10
years ago, small farmers in the United States have been
losing their land at a devastating pace.
During the same time, more than 2000 migrant workers
have died in their attempts to cross the border in order
to find work so they can feed their families. Those
who have succeeded in crossing are facing increased
exploitation as migrant laborers, and today earn less
than they did two decades ago. Before the devastation
created under NAFTA is expanded throughout Central and
South America in new trade agreements, it is imperative
that the consequences of the current agreement be recognized
and rectified. In Mexico, the needs of the men and women
who should be making their living from their own land
in Mexico, helping to building up their own communities
and a promising future for their children must be addressed.
On this International Day of Farmers� Struggle, we
urge you to continue an open dialogue with the members
of the El Campo No Aguanta M�s, and to carry their concerns
to the governments of the US and Canada. We, for our
part, pledge,to call upon the leaders of our respective
governments to support the fulfillment of these same
demands.
Sincerely, Rural Coalition Rural Advancement Fund North
American Farm Alliance
ACTION:
The Sign on Letter included below will be hand delivered
by a solidarity delegation to the Mexican Embassy on
Thursday, April 17th at 2:00 PM EST. To sign on to the
attached letter email hfenney@ruralco.org
Contact Person: Organization: Contact email: Phone:
Location: Join the delivery Solidarity Delegation: If
you are in DC and would like to join us in hand delivering
the letter to the Mexican Embassy please email hfenney@ruralco.org
or call 202-628-7160. We will meet in front of the Embassy
at 1:50 PM on Thursday and deliver the letter and voice
our solidarity with the struggling Mexican peasants
and the efforts of El Campo No Aguanta Mas (Mexican
peasants movement "The Countryside Cannot Take it Any
More")
MORE BACKGROUND:
At the Third World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, social
movements agreed to continue their struggle against
the WTO and other "free" trade agreements like the FTAA,
and raise their voices for alternatives to these aggressive
policies for liberalization and privatization. According
to the most recent newsletter of Via Campesina, this
period of mobilization and action is designed to protest
against governments� selling off peoples� interests
in the WTO and in other regional and bilateral trade
agreements and to oppose the continued repression of
peasant organizations.
For example, Jos� Bov�, spokesperson of the Conf�d�ration
Paysanne has been sentenced to jail and in Mexico the
government is intimidating leaders of the "El Campo
no Aguanta Mas", a peasants� coalition. Leading up to
the April 17th day of action, there was an action in
Geneva on the 29th of March: This protest will demand
that governments stop negotiations on agriculture and
services in WTO in order to avoid further destruction
of public services and farmer-based production of food.
The protest emphasized the need to start working on
alternatives to the WTO, liberalized trade and privatization.
We hope that the April 17th actions will help us build
momentum to pressure all governments in the time leading
up to the WTO Ministerial in Cancun.
List of countries where actions are taking place
April 17th:
Australia United States Colombia Brazil Canada/Quebec
Indonesia Italy Lebanon Nederland/Netherlands/Paises
Bajos �sterreich (Austria) Switzerland/Geneva Uruguay
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