LOOK CAFTA NUMBER ONE

"For us the free trade agreement has many consequences; we already have much poverty, and it is the rich that will be the beneficiaries at the cost of the poor. We will have to find new ways of bringing bread to our tables." - Floricelda, Guatemala.

Last Thursday, US Congress approved the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) by 217 votes to 215. (Another overwhelming majority then.)

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) worked a treat. The deal, signed between Canada, the US and Mexico over ten years ago, made it much easier for multinational corporations to access Mexico’s markets and cheap wages. Corporate profits soared. Wal-Mart can now flog t-shirts for less than $2 and still make a healthy profit, thanks to easier access to sweatshop labour.

Pleased with such a result, White House Inc. decided to try and grab the whole continent with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (SchNEWS 432). But since South America has gone all lefty this has stalled, so they’ve scaled down their plans and come up with the Central American Free Trade Agreement - CAFTA. Which means more free-market misery lies ahead for the majority of Central Americans, and now that the Dominican Republic has joined the group, the agreement has become known as ‘DR-CAFTA’: a not-so-secret plot for the corporate take over of the Americas.

While George bullshits to Congress with "It’s a pro-jobs bill. It’s a pro-growth bill. It’s a pro-democracy bill", the truth is that Dr-CAFTA is intended to force open ‘new markets’ and make it easier for corporations to do business - with all the resulting increases in the gap between rich and poor, trashing of the environment and human rights abuses in the process.

If it’s such a great treaty, SchNEWS wonders why El Salvador waited till 3am the Friday before Christmas to vote on it, with their legislative assembly surrounded by riot police! Guatemalan politicos meanwhile considered moving to a hotel for their vote. Now Honduras’ Assembly members are slinking off to some secret location so as not to face the people of their country. "Clearly this is not a popular accord and can only pass by the most devious and secretive means," reckons Tom Rickerof the social justice organisation, the Quixote Centre.
DR STRANGELOVE

So what will Dr-CAFTA do for Central Americans? Checking out what NAFTA (SchNEWS 200) did for Mexico gives us a clue: workers' wages halved, standards of living fell and unemployment increased in the countryside. The removal of price controls led to a quadrupling of the price of corn (the Mexican staple). But this did not help the farmers, now competing with US agribusiness: the price they receive for their produce is half what it was before NAFTA. But hey, the richest are getting richer while the poorest are getting shafted - that's progress, neoliberal globalisation style.

Dr-CAFTA’s got plans for the environment too: it gives companies the right to sue any government that obstructs their ‘right’ to profit with petty environmental regulations. Thanks to a NAFTA court ruling the US-based Ethyl Corporation forced Canada to pay $13 million in damages and drop its ban on the dangerous gasoline additive MMT, a known toxin that attacks the human nervous system.

And while the G8 (including US and Canada) spouted crocodile tears over Africa and AIDS, Dr-CAFTA will work to reduce access to cheap drugs in Central America condemning thousands to death. This is because US lawmakers have insisted that the agreement adheres to intellectual property rights, stopping the production of cheaper generic drugs. Access to these more affordable drugs is imperative for a region where 275,000 people have HIV. Despite this, the Guatemalan government, under pressure from the US, rescinded a law passed last year ­- taken "in the public health interest" to get rid of what is known as "data exclusivity" – meaning the ability to produce generic drugs if it can be shown that they are based on tests already completed by others. Without the access to test data, such drugs can be blocked from use for up to ten years while expensive research is being duplicated. AIDS patients have taken to the streets in Guatemala to counter such measures, but in the US the clause within the agreement hardly merits attention.
NAFF OFF

But this is not the US vs Central America. Just like NAFTA, workers in all the signatory countries are going to lose out to big business interests. NAFTA enabled company bosses to sack 820,000 car workers in the US who were earning $18 an hour and swap them for 700,000 Mexican workers on $5 a day. Demonstrations against the treaty have hit US cities from San Francisco to Washington DC. The people of Central America have staged widespread protests and actions including their speciality, blockading roads. In response, US trained and equipped armed forces have again been flexing their military might to suppress the population. In Guatemala workers went on strike for a week demanding a referendum – tooled-up cops used tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and live ammunition to break up protests resulting in dozens of injuries and the death of at least one protestor.

CAFTA is one of numerous treaties (funny no one ever proposed a Latin Amercian Free Trade Agreement) tying developing countries to neoliberal reform, helping globalising corporations secure their dominance over concepts like humanism, social justice, democractic principles or action. Company bosses are now celebrating being one step nearer to their dream, the Free Trade Area of the Americas - freedom to screw the majority of the population so a global capitalist elite can make shed loads of cash, that is. Doesn’t it make you want to do something about it?
See www.stopcafta.org

* Read ‘Shafted: Free Trade and America’s Working Poor’ where farmers, fishermen, garment workers etc. describe the ruin that free trade agreements have unleashed on them. To order copies www.foodfirst.org

** Visit  http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news506.htm for the rest of this weeks issue.