In place since 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) could expand to become the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by 2005. And with concerns that the FTAA is destined to create a hemisphere-wide, corporate-controlled economy, more than 100 students and community members gathered on campus Saturday to learn how the FTAA could affect Oregonians.
The FTAA is a free trade and investment agreement that 34 of the 35 countries in the Western Hemisphere may soon be negotiating. In addition to learning about the potential effects of the FTAA, the participants also discussed ways they can stop it from becoming a reality.
Both participants and organizers said that over the past seven years, NAFTA has caused environmental, fiscal and social devastation.
Scott Miksch, a staff member of the Committee in Solidarity with the Central American People, helped to coordinate the teach-in, hoping to offer people “the tools [it will] take to stop free trade in its tracks.”
He said the mainstream media and the government are not revealing information about the FTAA.
“They don’t want people to learn about it. We have to educate ourselves,” Miksch said. “We are hoping that the FTAA idea doesn’t become a reality.”
Mick Garvin, a member of Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment — a group trying to make corporations more accountable for their behavior — said he hoped the workshops Saturday offered the public a chance to understand the issues surrounding NAFTA.
“The only way we can manage to get the power back is to educate the public and fill them with a sense of the loss of the sovereignty of the people,” Garvin said.
Mike Miller, a sophomore at Lane Community College, said he came to the teach-in to learn more about issues such as globalization.
“It is important for people to learn as much as they can because it affects every aspect of people’s daily lives,” Miller said.
He attended the “Privatization and Sovereignty” workshop where speakers addressed the erosion of sovereignty and privatization of education and prisons.
Miller said a downside of the sessions was that the knowledge reached people who were already active.
Lynn Stephen, a University professor of anthropology, spoke about the social and environmental costs of free trade agreements — and about NAFTA’s effects on indigenous communities in southern Mexico. After NAFTA, she said, an increase in poverty and a shortage of jobs caused the indigenous “rural farmers” from Mexico to immigrate to the United States.
Stephen said people need to understand NAFTA’s “vicious cycle” that has caused an increase in the number of undocumented indigenous Mexican farmers in Oregon, she said.
“I hope that people can see their personal relation to their consumption and understand implications of free trade agreements for other people in other countries,” Stephen said.
On April 21, which is “FTAA Action Day,” President George W. Bush, trade advisors and prime ministers will meet in Quebec City, Canada to hold a meeting about the FTAA, Miksch said.
“The free traders believe that this free trade is going to eliminate borders, but they really mean eliminating borders for corporations,” he said.
Miksch added that for those people who cannot make it all the way to Quebec City, demonstrations will be taking place at the U.S.-Canadian and the U.S.-Mexican borders.
The protest at the U.S.-Canadian border, or the “March at the Arch,” will take place at Peace Arch Park, home of the Peace Arch Monument in Blaine, Wash. The monument symbolizes the cooperation between Canada and the United States, and it has served as a site for previous protests.