Smash CAFTA
  By CISPES

The passage of Fast Track allows President Bush to begin formal negotiations of CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, a proposed commercial pact between the United States and five countries in Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica. The name sounds familiar because it is modeled after the now-infamous North American Free Trade Agreement - NAFTA - which has devastated working people in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

CAFTA, like NAFTA before it, is part of a bigger project to spread free trade, corporate power, and US political and economic domination throughout the Americas. That project has a name: The Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, a hemisphere-wide trade deal that is being forced upon the region with renewed vigor by the Bush Administration. FTAA, in turn, is part of a greater US-led strategy known as Neoliberalism or Corporate Globalization.

The passage of Fast Track makes mobilization against CAFTA even more critical. We must take every opportunity to block the passage of Free Trade Agreements and organize against them. The struggle to stop CAFTA will slow down and, potentially, kill the formation of the FTAA.

Who wants CAFTA?

Bush and multinational corporations are pushing CAFTA because they see a large potential market for US exports. Eliminating taxes and tariffs in Central America - a cornerstone of the agreement - would lower production costs and increase corporate profits, while also benefiting large banks and foreign investors. A key reason the US is pushing CAFTA so strongly now is the strategic role it plays in advancing the FTAA. Along with Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), an infrastructure mega-project, these projects will effectively turn Central America into one giant free trade zone.

Central America: Achilles Heel of Free Trade

El Salvador and Central America are a strategic spot on the path to hemispheric free trade. For years, Central America has served as a testing ground for key elements of the US' model of Corporate Globalization. Plan Puebla Panama has initiated a massive regional project aimed at modernizing and integrating Central America's infrastructure (roads, seaports, and airports) to facilitate trade. In 2001, Dollarization was illegally imposed in El Salvador. Free Trade Zones abound in Central America, with El Salvador having the largest number. And it was Salvadoran President Francisco Flores who President Bush hand-picked to represent Latin America at the last G8 conference in Genoa.

Central Americans are mobilizing against this neo-colonial corporate scam. Unions, environmental organizations, women's groups, farm workers, marginalized communities, Left political parties and international solidarity organizations are taking to the streets and organizing in opposition to any trade deal that puts corporate profit before human needs.

The anti-neoliberal FMLN has become the largest party in the Salvadoran legislature and represents the largest cities, covering 60% of the population. Legislative elections may well give the FMLN the power to block ratification of CAFTA and the FTAA. The FMLN could even gain the Presidency in 2004. The ties between the FMLN and the grassroots social movement is very strong.

What's So Bad About CAFTA?

Workers Punished

In Mexico and the United States, the arrival of NAFTA in 1994 did not bring better jobs as its advocates had promised. Rather, 5-6 million well-paying jobs left the US to be replaced by insecure low-wage employment that pays about 77% less. Mexico has also seen an abrupt decline in wages and an increase in the poverty rate. Between the years 1994 and 2000, the purchasing power for the poorest 80% of Mexicans dropped 39 percent.

Starvation-wage sweatshop or maquila jobs are the reward for countries that create an "attractive investment climate" by busting labor unions, cutting workers' benefits and worsening labor conditions in a "race to the bottom." The Salvadoran government has promised business leaders that it will apply the rural minimum wage to work in the maquilas, reducing salaries by over 40%, from just $130 per month to a mere $78. Minister of Economy Miguel Lacayo, in a closed session with US business leaders, explained why they would want to invest in El Salvador: "We have a very low level of trade union organization." According to Lacayo, this "favorable investment climate" would only intensify with the signing of a Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

Privatization of Public Services

Corporate Globalization (Neoliberalism), the system that free trade agreements promote, calls for the privatization of public services. These agreements see governmental support of public services such as water, education and healthcare as unfair "barriers" to trade and competition. However, privatization benefits only a tiny political and economic elite at the expense of the general public. Privatization has meant higher prices, poorer service, union busting and worsened working conditions; it puts profit before the needs of the public. For this very reason the US Federal Government is now re-nationalizing airport security after years of letting private corporations do the job. Increased public scrutiny in the aftermath of September 11th showed that security companies were cutting corners to save money, prioritizing the bottom line over fulfilling its mission of public safety.

In El Salvador, the government has pushed forward privatization in an attempt to lay the groundwork for entering into free trade agreements with superpowers such as the US. The result: former public services, such as telephone and electricity, more than doubled in price, service in rural communities where corporations were unable to make enough profit was completely cut off, and the industry unions were busted. The corporations fired union members only to hire them back as non-union labor at lower rates of pay and with no benefits.

Increasing Corporate Power, Eroding Democracy

Working hand-in-hand with privatization, free trade deals like CAFTA weaken regulatory measures and open the way for increased corporate exploitation in poor countries like El Salvador. The examples of Enron and WorldCom show how crooked corporate giants in the United States use the deregulated "free" market to destroy lives in the name of profit. It is no coincidence that Enron - facing scandal in the US - is setting up shop in Nicaragua and other third world countries.

CAFTA would give companies free reign in Central America, obliterating the democratic process by robbing citizens and communities of their power to shape their own society. The insidious Chapter 11 of NAFTA, which, gives corporations the right to sue governments for inhibiting "profit-making potential" would be included in CAFTA and the FTAA. Using this rule, a Canadian corporation is currently suing the US for $970 million over a Californian law that prohibits the toxic chemical MTBE, which contaminates drinking water, to be added to gasoline sold in the state.

Destroying Agriculture

In Mexico, NAFTA devastated a once strong agricultural sector. In Central America, the effects on the agricultural sector and the economy, as a whole, would be far worse. Central American economies have traditionally been agricultural based. In El Salvador, agriculture accounts for 12% of the GDP and 30% of employment opportunities.

Groups like the National Association of Agricultural Workers (ANTA), the Salvadoran Campesino Union, and the agricultural and rural development organization, CIDAR, have condemned CAFTA for what it is: an asymmetrical agreement that will destroy a Salvadoran agricultural sector that simply cannot compete. Years of governmental neglect and recent natural disasters have devastated farmers. CAFTA, which would introduce heavily subsidized US agricultural imports, would completely wipe out what remains.

The People Respond with Solidarity and Resistance!

In Central America, the push for CAFTA has been countered by grassroots activism. When George Bush visited El Salvador on March 24 to promote the free trade agreement, over ten thousand people from throughout Central America took to the streets in opposition. 25,000 Salvadorans marched on May 1, as workers from all sectors of society overwhelmingly denounced CAFTA and the FTAA. The Central American Social Movement has made a call for mobilizations on October 12th to protest the PPP and CAFTA.

The Left Salvadoran political party, the FMLN, representing the interests of the poor, rejects all NAFTA-style free trade agreements. It has joined the Salvadoran social movement in massive mobilizations while fighting within the country's parliament for just commercial relations. Meanwhile, a coalition of Central American trade unions and social movement organizations, including NGOs, women's and environmental groups and other organizations, have come together pledging to expand the fight against CAFTA.

The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is responding to the call of the Central American people by organizing a multifaceted campaign against CAFTA in the United States, combining congressional pressure, consciousness raising and direct action. Through solidarity, an alternative model is being constructed to serve the necessities of the poor majority in countries like El Salvador, one based firmly on equality and economic justice. Through solidarity we can defeat CAFTA and the FTAA!