Atelier 19, article 26


© Naomi Klein :
(The Globe and Mail, March 28, 2001)
 
                            The really tough question in Buenos Aires
                                          By Naomi Klein
 

     Next Friday, trade ministers from the 34 countries negotiating the Free  Trade Area of the Americas
     will meet in Buenos Aires. Many in Latin  America predict that the ministers will be greeted with
     protests much  larger than the ones that exploded in Seattle in 1999.

     The FTAA's cheerleaders like to pretend that their only critics are  white college kids from Harvard
     and McGill who just don't understand how  much "the poor" are "clamouring" for the FTAA. Will this
     public display of  Latin American opposition to the trade deal change all that?

     Don't be silly.

     Mass protests in the developing world don't register in our discussions  about trade in the West. No
     matter how many people take to the streets  of Buenos Aires, Mexico City or Sao Paulo, defenders
     of corporate-driven  globalization just keep on insisting that every possible objection lobbed  their
     way was dreamed up in Seattle, by somebody with newly matted  dreadlocks slurping a latte.

     When we talk about trade, we often focus on who is getting richer and  who is getting poorer. But
     there is another divide at play: which countries  are presented as diverse, complicated political
     landscapes where citizens  have a range of divergent views, and which countries seem to speak on
      the world stage in an ideological monotone.

     In North America, we are finally hearing the debates about whether or  not more of the same model
     of deregulation, privatization and  liberalization will protect our heath and education and water
     systems. In  Western Europe, the foot-and-mouth inferno is putting the entire model of
      export-oriented industrial agriculture on trial.

     And yet such diversity of public opinion is rarely attributed to citizens  of Third Word countries.
     Instead, they are lumped into one homogenous  voice, channelled by dubiously elected politicians
     or, better yet, ousted  ones such as Mexico's Ernesto Zedillo, now calling for a global campaign
      against "globophobes."

     The truth is that no one can speak on behalf of Latin America's 500  million inhabitants, least of all
     Mr. Zedillo, whose defeat was in part a  repudiation of NAFTA's record. All over the Americas,
     market  liberalization is a subject of extreme dispute. The debate is not over  whether foreign
     investment and trade are desirable -- Latin America and  the Caribbean are already organized into
     regional trading blocs such as  Mercosur. The debate is about democracy: what terms and
     conditions will  poor countries be told they must meet in order to qualify for trade and  investment?

     For the past two decades, these terms and conditions have been  negotiated and enforced by the
     IMF and the World Bank in exchange for  loans. Social services have been privatized, user fees
     introduced,  agricultural subsidies cut (while richer countries kept theirs), hard-won
      land-redistribution programs abandoned, and minimum wage controlled --  all in the name of
     becoming "investment ready."

     Argentina, the host of next week's FTAA meeting, is currently in open  revolt over massive cuts to
     social spending -- almost $8-billion (U.S.) over  three years -- that have been introduced in order to
     qualify for an IMF  loan package. Last week, three cabinet ministers resigned, unions staged  a
     general strike, and university instructors moved their classes to the  streets.
   
     Though anger at wrenching austerity measures has focused primarily  on the IMF, it is rapidly
     expanding to encompass trade deals such as the  proposed FTAA. The Zapatistas began their
     uprising on Jan. 1, 1994 --  the day the North American free-trade agreement came into force.
     Seven  years later, three-quarters of the population of Mexico live in poverty, real  wages are lower
     than they were in 1994, and unemployment is rising. No  wonder the Zapatistas were able to draw
     150,000 supporters to the  streets of Mexico City earlier this month.

     And despite the claims that the rest of Latin America is clamouring for  a NAFTA to call its own, the
     central labour associations of Brazil,  Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay -- representing 20 million
     workers --  have come out against the plan. They are now calling for countrywide  referendums on
     membership in the FTAA.

     Brazil, meanwhile, has threatened to boycott the summit altogether,  furious at Canada's dirty trade
     war and wary that the FTAA will contain  protections for drug companies that will threaten its
     visionary public health  policy of providing free generic AIDS drugs to anyone who needs them.

     Defenders of free trade would have us believe in a facile equation of  trade = democracy. The
     people who will greet our trade ministers on the  streets of Buenos Aires next week are posing a
     more complex, and  challenging, calculation: how much democracy should they be asked to  give up
     in exchange for trade?

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