Protestors greet AFTA delegates on first day of talks : AZ IMC

TUCSON- More than 200 people lined the street leading up to the Tucson Convention Center on Tuesday to encourage the 1,500 delegates from South America to not sign into the Andean Free Trade Agreement.

A luncheon and opening talks sparked the 5 day, sixth round of talks to the trade agreements between Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and the United States. Bolivia is officially observing the trade talks.

Unlike other trade agreements of such caliber, security and police presence was minimal allowing those in opposition to AFTA to talk directly to the delegates outside the convention center. Individuals representing various human rights, labor rights, peace and environmental groups yelled messages in English and Spanish as the delegates entered and left the talks.

"With my presence here I want to express my disagreement with this trade agreement because it only represents the big interests of the corporations," said Teo Argueta, from El Salvador. "I would agree with the concept of AFTA if it would include real issues that affect people, like an agreement that would eradicate hunger and our lack of health insurance and education."

A Peruvian delegate, Cesar Penaranda, loudly dismissed the protestors by saying, "You are not Peruvian. You do not know what it is like."

Penaranda, leader of Peruvian entrepreneurs, says he is convinced that AFTA is good for Peru because it is the opportunity for more employment and to increase the standard of living. Currently, approximately 27-30 percent of Peruvian exports go to the United States

In response to questions about labor rights, Peranranda answered, "What is the best right of the worker is to have employment." He added that the Peruvian delegates are trying to negotiate with the US to protect their natural resources.

Word on the street is that many of the South American delegates are unsatisfied with the American hospitality. There is no press room in the Tucson Convention Center, the access to internet and email is limited, and many of the delegates left the talks today having to use their own money to buy a cab ride back to their hotels. Geographically, the delegates are spread among 15 hotels, often grouped by country.

While waiting for a cab, Ronnie Jurado, a Congressman from Peru, commented what AFTA means for his country. "The US is an important market for the export of raw materials, including textiles, agriculture and fishing," he said.

Commenting on the protest, Jurado said, "The protest is legitimate because they think jobs will be lost, there is this same feeling in Peru. But, the world will keep making commercial ties and it will happen with this protest or not."

But Jurado, who is also the vice presidente for El Comision de Comercio Exterior, conceded that the majority of Peruvians are against the trade agreement. "The pharmaceuticals and drug companies are against AFTA because of the intellectual property rights that can be extended over 20 years and they feel intimidated by the US companies," Jurado said. "The agribusinesses are against the agreement because they will be hurt and lose jobs due to US subsidies on agriculture," Jurado added.

The Peruvian president currently has a 7 percent popularity rating.

While also waiting for a cab, José Luis Cárdenas, a Colombian delegate was shy about talking the agreement. Cárdenas, a representative for the private tobacco industry, is hoping to lobby for the export of raw tobacco into the US. "If we increase production, it will increase jobs," Cárdenas said.

The main Colombian tobacco company, Piel Roja, was recently purchased by Phillip Morris. The other tobacco farmers are worried how AFTA will affect them, such as the indigenous people in northern Colombia who have been forced from their lands by paramilitary groups working for transnational corporations.

Enrique Daza, director of the Colombian Network Against Free Trade and speaker at the protest today, emphasizes that many of the Latino delegates, such as Cárdenas, are young men, formally educated in free trade philosophy in the US, who aren't familiar with many of the roots of the problems, and may be easily intimidated by the US.

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Later that day, a panel discussion was held at the University of Arizona College of Law, to hold a discussion on how the Andean Free Trade Agreement will impact the people in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, a faculty member in the Mex-American Studies and Research Center at the University of Arizona, spoke about the conditions of Mexico that have been the consequence of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that took affect in 1994.

"Due to NAFTA, many things that were won in the Mexican revolution were changed so things could be bought and sold, we lost many of the state owned resources," said Rubio-Goldsmith.

Another panelist, Luiz Eduardo Molina, professor and vice president of the Central Union of Workers in Boyaca, Colombia, used Mexico as an example of what will happen to Colombia under AFTA.

"We already have the experience of NAFTA to look back on. Mexico is now importing 67 percent and exporting only 23 percent of agriculture. Basic salaries have increased only 130 percent while the price of the basic food items have gone up 560 percent. The level of poverty has increased 75 percent. So this is not a treaty that will benefit the workers or the economies of our country, there will be a collapse of labor guarantees and guarantees of social security," Molina said.

Molina has spent the last nine months living in Phoenix, Arizona under the hospitality of the Roofers Union. Living in Colombia, the nation that has more union activists murdered than the rest of the world combined, the death threats Molina's received convinced him to relocate temporarily in the US. Molina is preparing to return to Colombia at the end of the week.

Enrique Daza, the third panelist, spoke of the hypocrisies embedded in AFTA. "The AFTA does not really have anything to do with trade or freedom, nor is it really an agreement. It has to do with buying and selling. In truth, the US is protecting its market through subsidies and anti-dumping policies and is not a free market for us either."

Daza continued, "The US controls the policies that are very important in Colombia. They have control of the foreign debt, the role of Colombia's place in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the US is committed to Plan Colombia. Under these conditions, the US has the ability to impose any condition it wants on Colombia. This isn't a treaty, but form of twisting someone's arm behind their back. This is a big lie that the treaty is dealing with freedom and trade."

"The impact as you imagine, AFTA will exterminate national production, terrorize the population, privatize public services, interrogate the environment, eliminate national sovereignty and create a colonial status among the Andean countries with corporations becoming the owner of petroleum, water and biodiversity. For that, we are actively fighting against the treaty," Daza said.

A Colombain union leader who moved to America after receiving death threats. He has been in the U.S. for nine months and plans to return after this week.