27 October to 1 November 2002, Quito, Ecuador
The networks and continental campaigns, the social organisations of our countries taking part in the continental campaign of struggle against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA,) issue a call to the Days of Resistance and Struggle against the FTAA that will take place in Quito, Ecuador, from 27th October to 1st November of this year.
At the same time as the Ministers of Trade of 34 countries of America (with the exception of Cuba) meet in Quito to continue, behind the backs of its peoples, advancing negotiations of the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas, the social organisations and peoples of our continent will meet in Ecuador, to demonstrate our total rejection of this model of integration that our governments, submissive to and compromised by neoliberalism, are trying to impose on each one of our countries.
Under the false reasoning that the FTAA will bring progress and well-being to our peoples, our governments have agreed to a process of negotiation for an integration project that will consolidate the hegemony of the United States through political, economic and military domination. This integration project that runs from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego is intended to be in place from 2005.
As was demonstrated at the Second Summit of the peoples in Quebec and in the massive mobilisations in Porto Alegre, we confirm that the struggle against the FTAA should be continued on all fronts because:
- The FTAA will signify for our people more social exclusion, more unemployment, more poverty, more indebtedness, including the end of the minimal social victories that the workers have gained through social struggles.
- The FTAA aims for greater militarisation and control of the natural resources of the continent through the imposition of Plan Colombia, the Andean Regional Initiative and the Plan Puebla Panama.
- The FTAA will strengthen the domination of the smaller economies by the large. The US and Canada represent alone nearly 80% of the GDP of the continent, the other 33 countries sharing the remaining 20%.
In this context we know that a model like the FTAA, whose principal objective is to permit massive transnational investments, will only weaken further our economies, attacking the sovereignty of the countries of the continent and blocking any model of development based on diversity, multiculturalism, equality or social justice.
For these reasons, for the right to sovereignty, for the right of our peoples to a development that is just, democratic and protective of the environment, for justice, for life, against neoliberalism, against debt, for an end to militarism and the domination of the United States over our continent, all of us will be united and present in Quito to STOP the AFTA. So that the Ministers of Trade and their colleagues listen to our voice of total rejection of this new model of imperial domination with which the United States wishes to consolidate its domination over the entire continent.
The days in Quito will be days of struggle and resistance. They will also be days of popular education, of reflection and analysis, of cultural and artistic demonstrations that will represent the multicultural and multisectorial richness of our struggles. We will be thousands, coming from our 35 countries to make them hear our voices, to say loud and strong:
No to the FTAA!
Yes to life!
Another America is possible!
Quito, 28th May 2002
