We, men and women, representatives of more than 80 organizations of all the sectors of the national life coming from 8 geographic departments, accompanied by several delegations that come from the Dominican Republic, of Puerto Rico, met in Christopher Hotel, from November 12th to November 14th 2003 to analyze the project of the FTAA;
During these 3 days, we have heard the analyses and the information spread by the Center for Free Enterprise and Democracy (CLED), by Group Croissance, bye the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by professors of University, by the Ministry of Agriculture, by the Office for the following of cooperation with the EU, by NGO like Oxfam Great Britain, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF); Analysis and testimonies from some Haitian experts, Haitian organisms and NGO, basis organizations and several specialists of PAPDA;
We note that:
– The Haitian Government, specially the office of following for the international Agreements, keeps the greater secret around the tie negotiations to the FTAA;
– The official delegations do participate more and more in the different international meetings to negotiate « agreements of the death » destined to eliminate all the resources of the country and that threaten the existence of the Haitian town;
– The dialogue does not part of the agenda of the Government, considering all the secret that keeps and its dumbness before the demands of the town to inquire into the negotiations around the different agreements in course and specially the FTAA;
– The economic and social situation of the poor sectors deteriorates every day more and the signature of the project of the FTAA will not do more than aggravate the conditions of life of the workers and producers farmers and the situation of the poor countries of the continent;
– The FTAA generate great interests, nevertheless are the most underprivileged sectors: farmers, women, students, small and young, medium enterprises that undergo the consequences. This situation of misery creates one serious nutritional dependency of the country before the American production.
During these 3 days of debates and workshops, we had the opportunity to discuss on several aspects of the project of the FTAA. We noted that the FTAA represents a danger without precedents for the peoples of the continent in their national sovereignty and also a threat for the democratic conquests and nutritional security of the people, etc.
The FTAA is a tool that serves to reinforce the political and economic sovereignty of the American imperialism within the continent with the objective:
– To eliminate the rights of sovereignty of the people on its territories;
– To create more poles of concentration of misery in the countries;
– To destroy the economic base of the farmers that is the agricultural production;
– To dismantle the sector of the small and medium enterprises;
– To weaken the State and to reduce its paper that was to serve to the populations bests basic public services;
– To worsen the problems of the environment that becomes a simple means to allow Capitalism to generate benefits;
– To increase the dependency of the countries of the continent in particular Haiti under the American economy and to get worse the deficit of the trade balance still more paying the service of an external debt that has been used to make richer the Governors against the poorest peoples;
– To reinforce the military presence of the United States of America in all the continent to control the borders and to repress all the movements of citizens destined to change the conditions of life of our people.
We noted that the FTAA is not more than the prolongation of the policies of structural adjustment imposed to the country by the IMF and the World Bank in the years ’80 with the complicity of the anti-popular Governments (with some exceptions in the continent) who always have occupied to the head of the power until today. These policies are a large extent responsible for the overexploitation process of the poorest people by the dominant minority.
We noted that these policies of liberalization have more effects on the farmer peasant who, from centuries, work with means very limited to produce for the local market and also to guarantee the food security of all the population.
We denounced the meeting of the Ministers of Commerce that is celebrated in Miami since any information has not been spread on the official position of the Government about the negotiations and how it defends the interests of the population through these negotiations;
We declared that nobody has our authorization in this meeting to negociate and therefore, we are not responsible for any way to the agreement signed by these people in name of the Haitian people.
After theses acts done through the debates and the workshop, We demand:
1. That the Government informs to the people on all the commitments that already took in name of the Haitian people within the framework of the FTAA;
2. That the Government stops temporarily all the negotiations within the framework of this project awaiting the accomplishment of a popular Referendum through as all the people will have to pronounce on the decision to be part or not of the FTAA and in what conditions;
3. The participation of all the sectors of the national life in all consultation on all the projects, agreements, laws affecting to the future of the country. A small group of experts cannot decide in name of a whole population;
4. That the Government starts a true and constructive debate to establish the mechanisms through which the population can pronounce itself on the elaboration of a true project of development that destines first of all at the fight against the poverty and the social exclusion beginning from communal sections to the whole geographic departments.
– We supported the declaration done by the peasant organizations coming from 13 countries within the framework of the Third Assembly of the People of the Caribbean (APC) through which denounced the FTAA like the main enemy of the region;
– We requested to all the sectors of the country: Men and Women, farmers, students, medium and small enterprises, unions, professionals, University, Intellectuals, Artists, writers, Schoolboy, basic Committee of parents, professors, Unemployed, organizations, supervisory associations, Chambers of Commerce, to mobilize itself with the purpose of defending its interests and those of the country threatened by the project of the FTAA;
– We requested to all these organizations to participate in all the mobilizations destined to block the course of Capitalism in the impoverishment of the people and the transformation of our territories like deposits of toxic food remainders like the GMO (OGM in french);
– We invited all the population to express itself on the project of the FTAA through the great national petition coordinate by the Coalition of Haitian organizations with the purpose of defining our own project of development;
– We requested to the population to participate in the Campaign of Boycotting of concerned products still more consuming local products coming from the work of our producing farmers;
– We supported the fight of the peasant movements of the Northeast, specially in Pitobert (Maribahoux) against the installation of industrial free trade zones on fertile farm. We asked to the Government and the Dominican investors to suspend to the repression installed in this zone to prevent the mobilization of the population against this project of death. We condemned the Hispaniola Plan that will make worse the precarious misery situation on the Haitian-Dominican border and that threaten the right of sovereignty of the Haitian people in its territory;
– We supported all the work of lobbying made by Continental Social Alliance (CSA) to looking for other models of integration that takes into account the right of sovereignty of our people depend on its development level;
– We supported all the mobilizations in all the American continent as the plebiscite made in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina and any other form of mobilization of the people like in Bolivia and Ecuador against the FTAA project;
– We supported the mobilization for a global justice organize by all the social movements through the continent that will be celebrated from the November 19th to 21st , 2003 in Miami to denounce the meeting of the Ministers of Trade and the orientation of the negotiations in course about FTAA. With them, we say that all the People of the Continent reject the project of FTAA.
We, representing of more than 80 organizations, reunited in Christopher Hotel in Port-au-Prince, from November 12th to 14th of 2003:
– We begin today an intense mobilization in all the country against the FTAA and everything what represents barrier for the fight against the poverty and the social exclusion in the country;
– We supported the Third hemispheric meeting that will be celebrated in Havana, Cuba from January 26th to 29th of 2004. We encourage participation of the Haitian organizations in this meeting in which it will be spoken of report and definition of other strategies of mobilization for 2004-2005;
– We commit ourselves to create through all the country, small groups of mobilization with the participation of all the sectors with the purpose of reinforcing our capacity to propose alternatives vis-à-vis of the ALCA as the document elaborated by Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA): « Alternative for Americas ».
“An Other Haiti is possible”