[news] Stopping the FTAA: Venezuela

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http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1110

Monday, February 23, 2004

Stopping the FTAA: Venezuela

By Deborah James, Global Exchange

If social movements are to repeat the recent victory against the WTO in the
upcoming FTAA, we must be able to recreate the two key aspects of the
winning anti-WTO strategy.

The first is the popular protests against the WTO that took place on the
streets of Cancún, led by the global federation of farmers’ organizations,
Via Campesina.

The second was the emergence of strong developing-country alliances. The
“Group of 21” emerged as a powerful new coalition. Of the 21 countries in
the Group in Cancún, 13 were from Latin America. This represents a
significant shift in the number of progressive governments in the region. As
more Latin Americans reject the corporate globalization promoted by elites,
they are electing governments whose policies more closely represent the
interests of the majority—poor people. But representing the poor in Latin
America often means being subjected to opposition from the U.S. government.
If we are to successfully derail the proposed FTAA, we must ensure that our
own government is not subverting democracy in our hemisphere.

Strengthening Regional Alliances

“Lula” da Silva in Brazil is the most well-known of these new leaders, and
the most important in terms of Brazil’s economic strength. Kirschner in
Argentina, Gutierrez in Ecuador, and Chávez in Venezuela have all started
taking a stronger stand in FTAA negotiations, and in promoting regional
alliances, such as that between the MercoSur countries and the Andean
Community. This is a direct counterweight to the U.S. strategy of using
bilaterals (like the U.S.-Chile agreement and CAFTA) and military aid (such
as Plan Colombia) to keep countries aligned with U.S. economic interests.

Of all of these, Venezuela’s negotiating position in the FTAA most closely
resembles the priorities of the social movements. And they are engaging in a
massive project of wealth redistribution—in a country that is has the
largest reserves of oil outside of the Middle East. In doing so Venezuela
has raised the ire of the U.S. government, which has been supporting
opposition elements that were responsible for the failed military-business
coup of April 2002 against the democratically-elected government. That
failed coup was outright praised by Washington—but was reversed by a massive
outpouring of hundreds of thousands of citizens in the streets.

Stopping the FTAA: Defending Latin American Democracy

If we are to achieve our goal of stopping the proposed FTAA, we must work
together with our partners in Latin America to strengthen regional
alliances. And as U.S. citizens, we must defend democracy in those countries
where our own government seeks to destabilize it—precisely because of their
governments’ pro-poor economic policies. Most importantly, we must ensure
that democracy is defended in the social movements’ key ally at the FTAA
negotiating table—Venezuela—against the efforts of the U.S. government to
covertly or overtly destabilize the democratically-elected government.

Venezuelan Position on the FTAA

In 1998, Venezuelans elected the Indian-Black son of schoolteachers,
President Hugo Chávez. They then voted to elect a Constituent Assembly to
write a new Constitution, which was approved in 1999 by over 71% of the
vote. Their negotiating position in the FTAA is based on this Constitution.
Venezuela’s FTAA position mirrors several key aspects of the social
movements’ critiques; that the negotiating process is undemocratic and
untransparent; that the agreement would give rights to corporations at the
expense of sovereignty and democracy; and that the privatization of services
is a death knell for poor people across the region.

The Negotiations Process: Undemocratic, Untransparent

Venezuela has charged that the process of negotiations has been undemocratic
and lacking in transparency and public participation, and has called for an
extension of the January 1, 2005 deadline. “Only if the negotiation process
is truly transparent for society as a whole; for business sectors; workers;
indigenous, cultural, and environmental groups; political parties;
parliament, and the press will we be able to assert that we are moving
toward an integration that can be considered to be a democratic process.”
(FTAA-Trade Negotiations Committee Memo, Venezuela, 8-11 April 2003.)

Popular Vote: the People Decide

According to article 73 of the Constitution, the government would have to
hold a popular referendum on the FTAA so that citizens could decide to
approve or not approve it. This commitment to citizens directly voting on
the FTAA is exactly the primary strategy of the social movements in the
hemisphere.

More Equality between Countries

In addition, they have argued that the proposed FTAA cannot truly be a fair
agreement until the member countries are more economically equal. They have
put forward a detailed proposal for the creation of Funds for Structural
Convergence. This fund, which has now gained the support of 24 nations,
would involve a massive shifting of wealth from the rich countries to the
smaller, more vulnerable nations, to ensure that inequalities among
countries are reduced.

National Sovereignty: the Right to Develop and to Create Jobs

A basic premise of the FTAA is to reduce the role of the state in domestic
policymaking and increase the control of foreign capital over local
economies. Venezuela has argued that the state must maintain a role in
promoting domestic economic development through use of national resources
and state contracts, including tools as technology transfer and performance
requirements. They are opposed to opening up investment and government
procurement. They were original members of the coalition against introducing
these issues into the WTO.

For example, oil is the primary source of Venezuela’s income. The national
oil company is the largest company in Latin America; its purchasing power as
an engine for economic growth is enormous. The amount of jobs created by
purchasing domestically—and from small and medium-sized businesses—cannot be
overestimated, and is a direct strategy of the administration for job
growth. Yet the proposed government procurement chapter of the FTAA would
prohibit countries from favoring local industries for state purchasing
needs. This is a tool that governments around the world—including the
U.S.—have used for decades to help promote local economic growth and create
local jobs. Yet now the U.S. wants to prohibit developing countries from
employing the same strategies we used to develop and create jobs.

People’s Right to Education: No to Privatization

Three of the key demands of any social movement of poor people focus on the
right to health care, the right to free education, and the right to food
security.

Privatization of education is prohibited by the Constitution, which
guarantees full and free access to education to all citizens. Venezuela is
currently carrying out a massively ambitious literacy program, Mision
Robinson, to educate the over one million adults who are illiterate. They
have built thousands of new elementary schools for the poor, and created a
new free university for those high school graduates for whom there was no
space in the exclusive universities. These programs exemplify the commitment
to the right to education, and are incompatible with privatized education.

People’s Right to Health Care, Not Corporate Patent Rights

The Constitution assures Venezuelans the right to health care. One of the
Venezuelan programs to implement this right is called Barrio Adentro, or the
placing of Cuban doctors in poor neighborhoods throughout Caracas. In
addition, on the crucial health issue of access to medicines, their WTO
position states that “Venezuela recognizes the supremacy of international
agreements in the areas of human rights, health, food security, and
biodiversity over the intellectual property rights of the transnational
corporations. Therefore, it is necessary to defend and preserve the right to
grant compulsory licenses to national companies so that they can produce
generic versions of patented medicines and foods...” (WTO position)

Right to Food Security: No to Biopiracy

Agriculture is a key sector for moving the country out of dependence on oil
exports and moving towards Food Sovereignty through sustainable agriculture,
a priority outlined in Article 305 of the Constitution. As founding members
of the G21 in Cancún, Venezuela called for the reduction of protectionist
export subsidies of rich countries, and the right of countries to support
their agricultural sectors to preserve food sovereignty, cultural diversity,
and traditional rural livelihoods. Regarding biopiracy and seed patenting,
Venezuela “also supports the right of indigenous peoples and peasants to
protect their traditional knowledge, and the right of farmers to protect and
utilize the seeds that they themselves produce.” (WTO position)

The Bolivarian Alternative: Building People’s Regionalism

Social movements in the hemisphere have learned that we must promote our own
vision of an alternative to the proposed FTAA—the Alternative Agreement for
the Americas. Venezuela has also produced a model vision of how nations in
the region could work towards regional integration, based on shared concern
for the environment, health, education, food security, and human rights.
They developed the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas—ALBA, in
Spanish—as a counterweight to the argument that the only path towards
regional integration is economic subservience to the corporate elite in the
north. ALBA is the only national proposal that closely mirrors the vision of
the social movements in the hemisphere, and is an important step towards
imagining that alternative can be created; that Another World Is Possible.

Stopping the FTAA: Defending Democracy in Venezuela

If we are to achieve our goal, which we must, of stopping the proposed FTAA,
we must strengthen our alliances across the continent. We must work together
with social movements to assure that governments are held accountable to the
demands of the people. And we must ensure that our own government does not,
in our name, help destabilize the most committed ally of the social
movements at the negotiating table—Venezuela.

See also: Interview with Deborah James of Global Exchange: “Venezuela is the
number one ally of the social movements”