[A-List] The Third Havana Assembly against FTAA

[Jorge Figueiredo <jfgf.consult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Third Havana Assembly: Mobilizing the 
Americas against the FTAA is an historical necessity

By Miguel Urbano Rodrigues
Editor of
http://resistir.info,
a Portuguese web site

The Third Hemispheric Meeting of Struggle 
against the FTAA illustrated quite well the 
explosive contradictions that exist between -- 
on the one side -- the will of the peoples of 
the Americas determined to oppose the project of 
imperial domination -- and on the other side -- 
the submissive attitude of almost all the 
governments South of the Rio Bravo facing 
Washington's decision to impose the FTAA 
beginning next year.

Meeting in Havana, 1230 representatives of 
social and political organizations from 35 
countries expressed the feeling and the 
combativity of the democratic and progressive 
forces of the Continent in a final Declaration 
and a Plan of Action that announce great 
struggles.

This meeting differed from previous ones for the 
quality of its reflection and its calm 
confidence as well as by the growing 
participation of the people against the FTAA, 
which tends to change the relation of forces to 
the detriment of imperialism. It indicated a 
deepening of consciousness of the threat hanging 
over Latin America. It advanced the important 
work of mobilization and organization.
For style and objectivity, the documents by the 
conference confirm that rhetoric yielded to 
realism. Its agenda is ambitious, but concrete 
and pragmatic. Romanticism was erased in the 
combat with what is possible.

At the end of four days of the event an 
objective emerged as permanent requirement, 
marking the conferences and speeches: it is the 
fundamental and first duty to defeat the FTAA in 
all its versions, as well as all the bilateral 
or subregional free trade agreements and 
treaties.

The Plan of Action gives priority to five 
objectives: strengthen the campaign against the 
FTAA in its ties to the popular struggles in the 
coming decisive months; hinder the advances in 
the process of militarization of the Americas, 
unmasking its connections with the FTAA; 
contribute actively to the world-wide movement 
against war; deepen the process of construction 
of an alternative plan to integrate economies in 
the Hemisphere; confront the transnational 
corporations and their interests in the signing 
of the free-trade treaties and in the processes 
of privatization as well as in the looting of 
natural resources.

The Plan of Action and the Final Declaration - 
both acclaimed by the closing plenary session -- 
give special emphasis to the Continent-wide 
mobilizations. Among these four are 
distinguished:

1- the world-wide day of protest against the war 
and the occupation of Iraq, set for March 20. In 
Latin America the protest will include the fight 
against Plan Colombia and the Puebla-Panama Plan 
and will demand the closing of all U.S. military 
bases in the Hemisphere, including Guantanamo;
2- the Mobilization on April 24 against the IMF, 
the World Bank and External Debt, on the 
sixtieth aniversario of the Bretton Woods 
Agreement;
3- the continental Day of Struggle against the 
FTAA when the ministerial negotiations on this 
project begin in Brazil, on a date expected to 
be in the second half of the year.
4- the Continental Action of protest and 
solidarity with those in the United States who 
are mobilizing on August 28 during the 
Republican National Convention against the re- 
election of George Bush. 

OSVALDO MARTINEZ AND STEDILE

Of the discussions that took place in the 
plenary sessions, two, for the content and 
importance, deserve special notice: the Cuban 
economist Osvaldo Martinez ? already published 
by resistir.info ? and of the Brazilian João 
Peter Stedile, a recognized leader of the 
Landless Movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra).
In his lucid speech, Osvaldo, former minister of 
the Economy, called attention to a danger of 
which the people are still insufficiently aware. 
The U.S. government, when it became aware that 
it was unable to impose the initial form of the 
FTAA, that collapsed in the face of direct 
opposition from Venezuela and with 
unsurmountable objections on the part of Brazil 
and Argentina, had opted to a new version, 
called FTAA light, from which the most 
contentious items had been removed.
U.S. strategy, ably developed, was not, however, 
modified. Its basic objectivo ? the total 
recolonialization of Latin America ? remained 
intact. The goal is the same; the means to reach 
it are now different. As Octavio Martinez 
reminded the audience, "at the meeting of 
ministers that took place in Miami a change of 
design of the original FTAA project appeared 
with two ingredients appeared: 'a soft' FTAA of 
misty contours to be defined and some bilateral 
free-trade treaties that continue to be the hard 
FTAA and probably harder still (...) The 
annexationist plan changed form and procedures, 
but kept its essence ".

Chile, misgoverned by a neoliberal coalition, 
already bit the hook and signed a bilateral 
treaty. The signing of a subregional treaty with 
the countries to Central America seems imminent 
and inevitable. Another not very different one 
will follow with the Andean nations, with 
exception of bolivariana Venezuela. Uribe's 
Colombia, initially turning toward a bilateral 
treaty, will sign everything Washington demands; 
Peru and Equator will not put up resistance. 
Bolivia, due to force of the popular movement, 
could cause some worry, but for the Bush 
Administration the great task at the moment 
consists of forcing Brazil and Argentina to 
accept as the limiting date the year 2005 for 
the implantation of FTAA light, much as they had 
agreed in the Miami meeting. Later, in the 
development of imperial strategy, the FTAA-heavy 
will be imposed. The giant plans to show its 
teeth.

The new politics of alliances of the Lula 
Government [Brazil], accenting its centrist 
tendency and strengthening its neoliberal trend, 
did not contribute to reinforcen hopes that 
Brazil will refuse to sign the FTAA or at least, 
will succeed in forcing another postponement. 
Brazil's capitulation will drag in Argentina, 
also involved in the group of Mercosul countries 
and obviously it will push Venezuela into a very 
difficult and isolated position.

João Peter Stedile, using cautious language, 
touched the plenary assembly with the content 
and combativity of his intervention. The leader 
of the Landless Movement definitively rejected 
the FTAA under any of its forms. When he 
appealed for the mobilization the people against 
this annexationist project, touched the deepest 
feelings of almost all of those present. He 
sketched the panorama of the crisis facing the 
U.S. power structure, that involves capitalism 
in its totality, and established links between 
the struggle against the FTAA and the need to 
firmly combat imperialist hegemony. In a brief 
commentary on the current situation in Brazil, 
he showed the existing contradictions in a 
government where there are communist ministers 
but beside them neoliberal ministers dominate 
and dictate economic and financial policies and 
in which the head of the Agriculture ministry is 
a deeply reactionary large landowner. In his 
opinion only constant and persistent mass 
pressure will allow the Lula government to 
modify the current direction and develope 
policies that correspond to the minimum wishes 
of the majority of those who elected it.
When he ended, the plenary assembly gave him a 
standing ovation to applaud his intervention.

MANY FRONTS OF COMBAT

The Third Meeting opened new spaces to the 
debate to extending the themes taken up in its 
program.

Seventeen panels in nine rooms allowed delegates 
with very different education and experiences to 
impart to the event a special atmosphere that 
reflected the fascinating diversity of Latin 
America in which the common denominator is the 
imperial oppression exercized by the U.S. power 
apparatus.

It is impossible to summarize in a short text 
such as this one the extraordinary wealth of 
this initiative, oriented toward struggle. It 
was also the broadest arena for the 
confrontation of different points of view and an 
unique opportunity for the transmission and the 
assimilation, on multiple levels, of diversified 
knowledge. It will have to suffice to clarify 
that the discussions and the debates they 
aroused involved the most pertinent issues: the 
external debt,militarization, environment, 
culture and identity, economy, agriculture, 
sovereignty, food production, media, immigrant 
workers, women, students and youth, peasants and 
Indigenous peoples, religious believers, 
parliamentarians, jurists, workers and union 
struggles, education.

As an extra, the conference provided very useful 
contacts for carrying out collective work, both 
within the scope of the Continental Social 
Alliance or outside of it, not only between 
friends and comrades of different countries and 
continents but also between leaders and 
political cadres who were able to exchange 
impressions on very pressing subjects that had 
not been discussed in the sessions of the event.
I found these contacts rewarding. I cite as 
example the meeting with a delegation of the 
youth of the Communist Party of Mexico (born of 
the fusion of two Marxist-Leninist parties of 
that country). During almost two hours, after a 
lecture on related ideological subjects with te 
theme of the complementary nature of the 
division of labor among social movements and 
revolutionary parties, we exchange impressions 
on the structural crisis of capitalism, the 
imperial preventive wars, the struggle against 
reformism and revisionist policies in the 
communist parties, the ideological offensive of 
neoanarquism, the Zapatism of Chiapas, the 
question of alternatives, etc.

It was in an atmosphere of fraternity and hope 
that, in the night of January 29, the body 
approved the Final Declaration of the Meeting. 
The Document has the structure of a call to 
participate in the great battles against the 
FTAA that are coming up. It made clear that that 
millions of inhabitants of the Americas since 
the Second Meeting had expressed themselves with 
clarity against the creation of the FTAA. What's 
now on the agenda is extending the proportion of 
this struggle, raising it it a higher level, at 
a moment where almost all the governments of the 
hemisphere are preparing to yield to the 
ultimatum of U.S.A., that is, to accept the FTAA 
in 2005. The Declaration is thus, also, a 
continental program for mass action.
When Fidel Castro ? who had followed the 
meeting's progress since it began ? entered in 
the great hall of the Palace of the Conventions 
to close the Meeting, he was greeted with an 
affectionate and extended ovation that expressed 
with deep emotion not only solidarity with the 
Cuban Revolution but also respect and admiration 
for its leader who symbolizes the Revolution's 
45-year-long heroic resistance to imperialist 
encirclement.

His speech, of humanist approach, fit into the 
continental fight against the FTAA the Cuban 
experience and the conquests of its people.
Cuba feels the threat. Its people are conscious 
that Cuba can be the target of the next 
aggression of the monstrous system of imperial 
power and domination. But Cuba is prepared to 
confront this threat if it materializes.
Fidel moved the plenary assembly when he 
affirmed, as he ended his speech: "It doesn't 
matter to me how I die, but certainly if they 
invade us I will die fighting."

The hero of the Sierra Maestra would once again 
pick up the rifle to fight against the enemy and 
for humanity: "We do not desire this conflict, 
but we will not yield an iota in our principles. 
Everyone will know what to do."

This article can be found in Portuguese in 
http://resistir.info
. 
Translated by John Catalinotto