25. RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE EXPANSION OF NAFTA/CAFTA TRADE MODELS

WHEREAS the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), in recognition of the significant

social and economic asymmetries between the U.S. and its neighbors in Latin America, opposes new trade

agreements based on the Free Trade Agreement architecture as the model to advance regional integration, and

instead  works  actively  to  generate  support  for  alternative  approaches  to  trade  policy;  and

WHEREAS with regards to immigration, the failed "free trade" policies of the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA), binding into treaty form the policies enforced by the International Monetary Fund and

the World Bank, referred to as the "Washington Consensus," have resulted in serious economic stagnation in

Mexico, and have decimated rural populations in Mexico, leading to the displacement of 1.3 million Mexican

peasant farmers, tearing at the fabric of local communities and families, resulting in a vast increase in

immigration from Mexico to the United States of workers in search of decent economic opportunities, and the

Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is projected to do the same to Central America; and

WHEREAS the Bush administration, rather than acknowledge the root of the current so-called "immigration

crisis" in the failure of the economic polices of NAFTA and calling for its renegotiation, has instead turned

towards militarization of the border and increased policing and other punitive measures towards undocumented

immigrants, and has negotiated and signed bilateral "free trade" agreements (FTAs) with the governments of

Peru, Colombia, and Panama, following the same failed trade policy model of the NAFTA and CAFTA, even

including the devastating agricultural provisions, which will likely result in further hunger and displacement;

and

WHEREAS with regards to the environment, even the "modified" FTAs with Peru, Panama, and Colombia will

lead to dramatic increases in mining, oil and natural gas exploration and extraction projects, leading to extensive

damage to the environment, especially the Andes mountains region and the Amazon basin, which is the largest

virgin forest on the planet, along with negative impacts for the Indigenous people who live in these regions; and

WHEREAS with regards to economic development, the FTAs with Peru, Colombia and Panama, fail to ensure

that foreign investment contributes to national development by restricting the governments' ability to regulate

foreign investment capital and giving foreign investors the right to sue sovereign Latin American countries in

secret, closed tribunals over health, safety, and other pro-development regulations, as well as subjects Peru to

compensatory claims for reversing its Social Security privatization; and

WHEREAS with regards to workers' rights, the FTAs of Peru, Panama, and Colombia continue to pit workers

in the United States against workers in Latin America while failing to address key workers' rights issues,

meanwhile of the 144 trade union murders worldwide in 2006, the single country of Colombia accounted for

more than half the victims with 78 unionists killed last year, and two trade unionists were killed in Panama just

this past August; and

WHEREAS protests against the FTAs in Panama, Colombia, and Peru since the onset of negotiations have

been regular and increasing, such as the nationwide strike on July 12, 2007 in Peru led by led by teachers

unions, peasant farm groups, Indigenous organizations and unions representing mining and manufacturing

workers, demonstrating the depth and breadth of massive citizen rejection of the "free trade" agreements; and

WHEREAS Latinos have deep understanding of the damages that the NAFTA/CAFTA "free trade" model has

wrought, both on our countries of origin and well as on us as Latinos in the United States, by pitting workers

against each other and causing a "race to the bottom" in wages and working conditions, by damaging our shared

environment, by undermining the provision of public services, by privileging investors' rights over public

interest regulation, by devastating rural communities and traditional family farms, and for many other reasons,

and therefore have a particular legitimacy as well as responsibility to oppose the expansion of that failed model,