January 07, 2005
Central Americans on CAFTA
"For nearly 20 years, our countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have been implementing a so-called development model that has led not to development, but to greater inequality and the loss of opportunities for the majority of people," said Peruvian economist Humberto Ortiz, who coordinates the Humanization of the Global Economy project for the Latin American bishops' council, known by its Spanish acronym CELAM.
The Central American bishops have called for public debate before other legislatures vote on CAFTA. In the joint statement, they called for the region's governments to "take as much time as necessary to provide adequate information and foster broad debate about the content and impact of the Free Trade Agreement. The moral measure of any trade agreement should be how it affects the lives and dignity of poor families and vulnerable workers," the bishops said.
The Honduran government has been exercising enormous pressure to get Congress to ratify the trade deal before the end of the year, to take advantage of the fact that the public is preoccupied with the year-end holidays, which makes it more difficult to mobilise social action.
But the Workers Confederation is on a state of alert, in case parliament approves the treaty quietly, or "in the shadows, as so many things are done in this country," added Israel Salinas, secretary-general of the Honduran Workers Confederation.
Trade unionists, producers and activists opposed to CAFTA say farmers will be the first to feel the impact of the opening up of the markets, because they are not protected by subsidies of any kind - a situation similar to that faced by small and medium businesses.
Labour rights are also under threat, they argue, because the unending search for competitiveness will favour the exploitation of cheap labour in substandard conditions.
"Even without the treaty, small businesses in Honduras are already disappearing, which means that if the accord enters into effect it will spell the end for that sector. Workers and social organisations regard it as just one more blow to our hopes,ยจ said Salinas.
More than half of Central America's total combined population of 37 million is poor, and the extreme inequality of income and wealth will be aggravated if CAFTA goes into effect, its critics maintain.
Albino Vargas, secretary-general of Costa Rica's National Association of Public Employees (ANEP), said the number of organisations in that country opposed to the trade accord is steadily growing, and the resistance promises to be fierce.