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Final
Declaration of the Hemispheric Meeting to Fight the FTAA
(November 13 to 16, 2001)
THE HAVANA CONSENSUS
Building solidarity in the Americas, fighting against the FTAA
Representatives of social, religious and trade union organizations and movements, women and men workers, youth, students, parliamentary groups, political parties, intellectuals, environmentalists, campesinos, indigenous organizations and human rights groups from throughout the hemisphere met in the City of Havana from November 13 to 16, 2001, at the Hemispheric Meeting to Fight the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The goals of the meeting were to help promote hemispheric mobilizations and to denounce the neoliberal agenda and this proposed free trade agreement, which would constitute the annexation and recolonisation of our peoples, a process that is already in progress.
As was the case at the Second Summit of the Peoples of America held in Quebec in April 2001, we reiterated that we are fighting the FTAA and the neoliberal model, which has resulted in disaster for the majority of the inhabitants of our hemisphere. The policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, upheld and implemented by neoliberal governments, have deepened poverty within countries and heightened the differences between the countries of the North and South.
At a time when the world is facing a crisis of unforeseeable consequences, we lament the tragedy caused by the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington; we condemn all manifestations of terrorism, including state terrorism, and express our solidarity with its victims throughout the world. Therefore, we condemn and denounce the war led by the government of the United States against Afghanistan, whose people are the primary victims of its consequences. At the same time, we condemn the U.S. government initiative to promote the militarisation of Latin American through the Colombia Plan, the Puebla Panama Plan, and other regional projects that signify greater intervention and the repression of growing popular protest. We demand the lifting of the blockade against Cuba and the dismantling of the U.S. military bases in Vieques and Manta.
In response to the Washington Consensus, which established the neoliberal agenda in the Americas, the 800 delegates at this meeting, representing 34 countries in the hemisphere, achieved a broad alternative consensus. The Havana Consensus is based on the perspective of integration and solidarity among equals, through the conquest of social justice and well being for all our peoples. Unlike the Washington Consensus, which is founded on the fundamental role of the market, our goal is to build an alternative and solidarity-based agenda rooted in the globalisation of economic, social and cultural rights.
We maintain that the FTAA, as a manifestation of imperialist rapaciousness, is wholly unacceptable as an option for our nations. The peoples of the Americas are struggling for integration aimed at achieving the primary goals of real economic, social and economic development, and the elimination of the enormous inequalities among countries and between women and men. We, the peoples of the hemisphere, cannot allow our governments to submit to the FTAA, and we must demand that they assume their rightful responsibility in the definition of national policies for economic development and the fostering of well-being and social equity, on the basis of respect for national self-determination and sovereignty.
The FTAA is an expanded version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and as such, it would transfer to the transnationals the right to dictate the standardization of rules and macroeconomic policies to national states.
In practice, the FTAA means:
• That the liberalization of markets for goods, services, investments and intellectual property rights would lead to corporate integration and the disintegration of national economies, societies and cultures, as well as an escalation in environmental plunder, by imposing the private rights of multinational companies over national constitutions.
• That the democratic deficit in the Americas would be intensified by the so-called Inter-American Democratic Charter, adopted in Lima on September 11, 2001 by the member states of the OAS. This charter ignores the sovereignty of the peoples and purports to certify the legitimacy of a government in accordance with totalitarian, restricted and exclusive parameters, based on an imperialist perspective.
• That the peoples of our countries would be unable to exercise their right to reject investments that compromise their socio-economic present and future, particularly with regard to speculative capital flows.
• That national governments, subordinated to the suprapower of the transnationals, would not promote policies to strengthen internal demand, and would become totally dependent on external markets.
• That the countries of the South would fiercely compete among themselves for the markets and investments of the North, offering low salaries, systematic discrimination against women, indigenous peoples and immigrants, the absence of social and environmental safeguards, and the laxity of their laws.
• That unemployment would spread like an uncontrollable pandemic, alongside the unbounded proliferation of maquiladoras and free zones, where the workers of Latin America and the Caribbean are overexploited, with salaries many times lower than those paid by corporations in their countries of origin and with no respect for labour, environmental, health, social security, gender and trade union rights. As these practices become increasingly widespread, employment will be more precarious and lower paid throughout the hemisphere, with a particular impact on women and minors, the primary victims of such practices today.
•That migratory flows would increase, while the overexploitation, discrimination, persecution and repression of migrant and undocumented workers would become more acute, thus reflecting the contradiction between extreme opening for the circulation of goods and services and restrictions on the circulation of human beings.
•That nations would fall into the abyss of financial subordination, aggravated by the enormous burden of foreign debts, and would lose even the slightest possibility of opposing the corporations of the hemispheric and global superpower.
•That agriculture, a vital sector for the majority of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, would be exposed to ruinous competition in the face of the technological power of the transnational corporations. Rural workers would be increasingly forced to join the exodus to a miserable life in the cities, to the detriment of cultural and multiethnic wealth, biodiversity, and reserves of drinking water and forests, in addition to the growing loss of agricultural work as a source of employment and food sustainability.
•That intellectual property rights would serve to consolidate the technological monopoly of the transnational corporations, perpetuating the gap between North America and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The traditional knowledge of aboriginal peoples will be exploited; they will be robbed of most of their natural wealth and deprived of access to new technology for covering their basic needs and for development.
•That the transformation of social rights into mere merchandise would further deepen poverty and the widespread crisis already suffered by our peoples with regard to basic rights like education and health care.
•That the transnationals and investors would be able to take legal action against national governments, and that these disputes would be settled by international arbitration panels, under the principle that transnational corporate interests should prevail over national laws and interests.
• That the governments of the vast majority of the hemisphere’s countries would give up the prerogative to make purchases from the private or public sectors of their own nations, even for the purpose of social benefit or promoting development, if the transnational corporations believe they are able to demonstrate that their offer is superior in competitive terms.
·• That any public funding for basic subsistence programs, or any kind of essential public service, including social security, health care, education or transportation, would be privatised, eliminated or severely restricted.
Building a social agenda for the Americas
We believe that any genuine integration process must centre on respect for the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples, which includes all basic human rights, whether civil, cultural, economic, political or social.
This declaration states that "any people whose fundamental rights are gravely ignored have the right to assert them".
We propose an alternative hemispheric policy to the FTAA which does not diminish the capacity of the government of any country to defend the social, cultural and economic needs of its inhabitants, and to stand up, when necessary, to the interests of corporations and attempted domination on the part of any foreign country.
We advocate an alternative integration, which, far from undermining, paralysing or eliminating the integration processes that have developed in Latin America and the Caribbean, would in fact incorporate and encourage them, to the benefit of the countries involved in these processes and of all those that make up our hemisphere. To achieve genuine hemispheric integration, it is essential to foster a process of international cooperation, with financing for development from the more powerful nations, so as to achieve a greater equality of opportunities for the area’s poorest countries, after a long history of colonial and neo-colonial exploitation, and particularly after suffering the consequences of two decades of neo-liberalism.
We believe that any agreement between countries with different levels of development must include, among other conditions, recognition of their inequalities and preferential treatment, in trade, financial, and technological terms, with the aim of balancing levels of development, as well as promoting social programs.
For the reasons outlined above, we believe that the goal of healthy and viable hemispheric integration is fully incompatible with the horrifying reality of a foreign debt that asphyxiates the economies of the majority of Latin American and Caribbean nations.
Therefore, we call for an alternative integration project that includes, as one of its bases, the annulment of the unpayable and illegitimate debt contracted by various governments in recent decades, without the consent of the peoples, often for fraudulent purposes, with the funds involved misspent on projects that did not benefit the country’s inhabitants; these debts have continued to grow as the result of unilateral decisions, on the part of creditors, to raise interest rates.
Finally, we express our utmost conviction that our struggle today, as a continuation of the numerous battles waged with exemplary resistance by the bravest sons and daughters of the Americas in recent decades, will lead us together to the destiny foreseen by Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, who declared almost two centuries ago, in the midst of his colossal campaign against colonialism, "I want, more than anything else, to witness the creation in America of the greatest nation in the world, not so much because of its immense territory and wealth, but rather because of its freedom and glory."
We will meet again at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, this coming February, raising our banners against the war, against terrorism, against the FTAA, against the foreign debt, and in favour of the globalisation of solidarity, because another world and another America are possible.
Hemispheric Plan of Action to Fight the FTAA
During the Hemispheric Meeting to Fight the FTAA, we adopted the following Plan of Action to reinforce the Havana Consensus:
We call for the promotion of unity among organizations throughout the hemisphere, in order to achieve, as quickly as possible, the mobilization of our peoples against the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas.
We urge the organizations represented at this meeting to join forces in building a space for political consensus in the formulation of alternative development proposals for the peoples of the Americas, in opposition to the current neo-liberal model of development.
Finally, we call for a common front to be established around two major focal points: 1) the promotion of a hemispheric agenda for social integration, sustainable development, and the fight against inequality, social exclusion and poverty; 2) the continuation and strengthening of popular mobilization campaigns against the FTAA, in harmony with events related to the World Social Forum and activities planned by the Hemispheric Social Alliance.
Immediate initiatives:
1. To establish hemispheric working groups to design the policies outlined in the first point, based on existing national, regional and local experiences, with regard to the following themes:
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the defence and promotion of the economic, social, cultural and environmental development of the peoples and countries of the hemisphere.
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Social inclusion policies
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Monitoring and follow-up of negotiations.
2. To promote a hemispheric training and information campaign through which popular movements will play a leading role in explaining to all sectors, including the small and medium business community, the true intentions of the FTAA.
3. To establish closer links among social movements, alternative information networks, academic and professional groups, and churches and ecumenical organizations.
4. To call on parliamentarians and parliamentary groups and/or committees in the hemisphere to engage in a debate with civil society, to ensure a leading role for the latter and contribute to the fight against the FTAA.
5. To mobilize the peoples and social organizations and movements at the time of meetings of the negotiating groups, Ministerial Meetings (Quito, November 2002), and the 3rd Summit of Heads of State and Government (Buenos Aires, April 2003), as part of the anti-imperialist struggle.
6. To organize a process of popular consultations and plebiscites on the FTAA, including the establishment of national committees, as a means of informing and mobilizing the peoples and pressuring governments.
7. To demand that governments present well-founded studies and research on the impact of the FTAA on the different sectors of national economies and on the labour market, cultural industry and environment.
8. To organize hemispheric, regional, national or sectoral days of protest against the FTAA.
9. To denounce and condemn the FTAA and continue to fight the attempts to speed up its implementation at a time when the economic and social situation in Latin America and the Caribbean is particularly weak, taking into account that the current crisis could fracture Latin American unity and make the region more vulnerable to the United States in these negotiations.
10. To denounce all attempts to criminalize our protests and struggles in the hemispheric and global arenas, and to reinforce solidarity among all social movements.
11. To support the expansion of sectoral networks and the establishment of national and regional chapters of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, as an element for the implementation of this Plan of Action.
12. To actively participate in national preparations for the Second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre and launch the Popular Plebiscite Against the FTAA.
13. To hold the Second Hemispheric Meeting to Fight the FTAA and widely disseminate the resolutions adopted at this meeting.
Other proposals
To hold anti-FTAA events on borders shared by countries of the Americas.
To create "literacy" brigades to raise awareness about the FTAA.
To organize a caravan that will travel throughout the Americas to spread information and mobilize the peoples against the FTAA.
To hold demonstrations in front of U.S. embassies at the beginning of this coming December, when the U.S. Congress is scheduled to vote on fast-tracking the agreement.
To promote discussion of the FTAA at the 10th Meeting of the Sao Paolo Forum, to be held in Havana from December 2 to 7, 2001, and to send representatives from this meeting to that event.
To support the proposals made by the churches regarding education and mobilization of the masses.
To participate in the 2nd Conference for Peace and Against the Colombia Plan, to be held March 4 and 5, 2002, in Mexico.
To promote meetings of jurists to open up debate on the FTAA.
To support the holding of the International Economists Conference scheduled to take place in Havana from February 11 to 15, 2002, at which the FTAA and its consequences will be discussed.
To declare March 28 the Hemispheric Day of Struggle for the Defence of Public Education and Sovereignty and Against the FTAA.
Havana, November 16, 2001