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[b]FTAA: Death knell to poor and developing Nations[/b]

Wednesday January 04 2006

By Stafford Joseph, General Secretary Antigua Trade & Labout Union (AT&LU)

The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) is likened to a sudden change from civilisation to barbarism.

The negotiating processes of the FTAA have been developed in a secret way since the beginning of the 1990’s. Some Latin American and Caribbean countries have already entered into these negotiation processes.

Due to the fact that these negotiations are shrouded in secrecy; governments are asked to withhold information, on decisions made, from the populace. In reality negotiations are carried out behind the backs of the people.

Rest of th Article

From the archives of the Antigua Sun newspaper reflecting on the character, values and eccentricities of the people of Antigua

Beginning of the Article

Decisions once approved can generate exploitation and social marginalization, with permanent environmental destructive consequences.

The FTAA project is not an integration project on process. Its nature is quintessentially economic and commercial. Its main objective is to impose common rules to the continent in order for all national activities to be controlled by transnational and multi- national corporations.

We must not forget that capitalism at its inception had imposed a separation between the economy and morals in order to transpose work into merchandise and workers into beasts of burden.

The FTAA is in deed a capitalism monopoly.

Should the FTAA become a reality, it will become the world’s largest commercial market, with a GDP of some US$8.5 trillion and some 800 million inhabitants. (What will be our share?)

The FTAA is hegemony. Although it is a “Free Trade� agreement, the FTAA’s aim is to utilise capital - more likely the American one - to control all activities and resources of the Caribbean and Latin America. If subscribed, it will not only affect trade, but also production, services, land, water and natural resources ownership.

Economic activities and in particular, agriculture, will be under severe pressure. Human Rights, Labour Rights, The Rights of citizens, local communications and indigenous people, the right to knowledge and culture and the basic forms of sovereignty will be infringed upon. In fact the present industrial climate is evidence of the above.

The already privatised public spaces and proposed privatisation of existing ones, a multiplicity of taxes and proposed new taxes, clearly leaves no doubt that the present political regime has not only relieved itself from its duty to guarantee the well- being of the citizens of Antigua & Barbuda but has also given away the limited sovereignty left.

The FTAA project dictates that the only role of the states and government will be that of repressing their citizens in order to guarantee capital protection.

As a trade unionist, I am of the opinion that, deep and great truth is totally projected today, for values are inverted and a share in the stock exchange is worth more than the future of thousands of workers. This is the main reason for the present crisis we are now facing.

The FTAA will indeed have great consequences on the economic, social and political lives of the people of the Americas.

The Antigua Trades & Labour Union is calling on the government of Antigua & Barbuda to inform the populace as to whether or not the government is involved in the negotiation process of the FTAA project, and if the government has approved the project.

The above opinions are not necessarily those of the publisher, newspaper, its advertisers or employees.