GE Free Latin American News (5/7/2005) | |
LATIN AMERICAN NEWS Free Trade Agreement (TLC) between Andean nations and United States will dismantle national production and worsen unemployment. "National production will be dismantled and unemployment will become worse especially in the country side. The most vulnerable sector is Agriculture but at present the industry is already going bankrupt", stated Luis Macas, President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE), in a recent presentation in the Peoples Forum on TLC. "Alleged negotiations are no other than impositions of US transnational business, and will NOT bring any benefit for Ecuadorians; its the other way around!" CONAIE will keep on insisting in the withdrawal from the negotiation rounds in order to clear the path for a National Popular Consultation process on TLC (FTA). We demand the government and the negotiating staff not to attend a new round in Washington D.C. where agriculture issues -where no agreement has been achieved- will be imposed, the U.S. will provide no concession affecting its interests and subsidized farmers. In the issue of Intellectual Property, national seeds will no longer be farmers own; these will have to be bought from transnational companies as MONSANTO. Our countries seed diversity and varieties will disappear, and GM Seeds will be imposed, with devastating consequences for our peoples Food security and sovereignty, Macas added. The 10 TLC official rounds for "have taken place without awareness of the whole Ecuadorian society, no social and citizen sector has been involved in the process. TLC is a territorial extension of what has already happened with Mexico and Central America," he added. Quito June 8th, 2005 The Paraguay National Coordination of the Rural and Indigenous Working Women Organizations (CONAMURI) demand justice for child Silvino Talavera. Eleven year old Silvino Talavera died in the Encarnacion Regional Hospital, on January 2003 poisoned by agrotoxics (Monsantos Roundup + cipermetrin) to which he was exposed to in RR Soybean plantations. The Trial took place in the Palace of Justice in the city of Encarnacion, of the Paraguayan Itapúa department. On Jnuy 7th, the Court found HERNAN SCHLENDER and ALFREDO LAURO LAUSTENLAGER guilty of homocide. They have to serve just two years in prision. g8 QUOTES "THE French Situationist philosopher, Guy Debord, once wrote that the consumerist society that exploits the world does so not simply through its economic power but 'in its capacity as the society of the spectacle'. The G8 summits have become an essential part of this spectacle. The rulers of the globe today insist on a passive acceptance of the world they have created." - Tariq Ali "The parade of celebrities backslapping each other because they managed to turn up [to Live8] on Saturday may have helped to make so many people come along but it may not have helped the world's poor one bit. Having what was essentially a party and then saying 'we've done our bit now you do yours' to the G8 leaders is not only an abdication of responsibility it's like asking an MRSA bug* to run a hospital." G8 Blog: http://www.spinwatch.org |