Press Release
Buenos Aires
November 17, 2000

In a meeting held on Wednesday, 15 November, with a broad delegation of Argentine civil-society organizations led by Nobel Prize Winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Foreign Minister Adalberto Rodríguez Giavarini acknowledged society's right to know what is being negotiated in the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas and to influence that process democratically. Nevertheless, he accepted the secretive nature of the negotiations, arguing that there is no consensus among the participating countries to open the process and release the texts.

The Argentine organizations presented him with a letter from the Hemispheric Social Alliance that had been endorsed by hundreds of organizations from Canada to Tierra del Fuego. In the letter, the groups demand that the current negotiating texts for the FTAA be published and that the list of government representatives to each of the negotiating groups be released. The letter states that "trade liberalization could clearly have far-reaching impacts on our economies, societies and environments. There must be a healthy public debate on the nature of such an accord." The letter was endorsed in Argentina by a large number of local organizations, among them unions, churches, environmental, women's, professional, human rights, production and neighborhood associations, as well as political parties and research institutes.

Despite the serious potential impact of the implementation of an FTAA on all of the countries involved, the negotiations have been held within a framework of almost total secrecy. This approach not only violates society's right to information and participation but, as indicated in the letter, contradicts the pronouncements made in each of the official Summits of the Americas "on the commitment of the 34 governments participating in this process to strengthen democracy throughout the hemisphere."

The Hemispheric Social Alliance is a network of union and other civil-society organizations that seeks to change the current regional integration process so that principles of democracy, transparency and respect for all human rights, including the right to autonomous development, are at its core. The Argentine Foreign Minister currently serves as President pro-tempore of the Trade Negotiations Committee of the FTAA.

In addition to Pérez Esquivel, the Argentine delegation included representatives of the Confederación de Trabajadores Argentinas (CTA), the Confederación General de Trabajadorse (CGT Moyano wing), Diálogo 2000, El Caldero, Equipo de Seguimiento, Investigación y Propuesta de Políticas para las Mujeres, Foro para la Participación Ciudadana en las Políticas de Desarrollo, Grupo Arco Iris, Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, Red Fe y Política y SERPAJ. The Foreign Minister agreed to open a channel of information and dialogue with Argentine civil society related to the negotiations process and the government's policy on the FTAA and other integration agreements, such as the MERCOSUR and the MERCOSUR-European Union accord. The Undersecretary for Economic Integration, Norberto Ianelli, was also present at the meeting in the absence of Vice-Minister and current Chair of the Trade Negotiations Committee, Amb. Horacio Chighizola, who will be responsible for providing information to and establishing a dialogue with civil-society groups..

The Argentine Foreign Minister also acknowledged that the FTAA could have repercussions for people's human rights including the right to employment, decent wages, social security, education, health and a clean environment and has therefore involved Amb. Leandro Despuy, the Secretary for Human Rights, in tracking the trade negotiations.

"It is important that they have committed to inform and to dialogue with our society on the FTAA," said Pérez Esquivel at the meeting's conclusion, "since, just as with the foreign debt, this is a crucial issue for our country and the region. But, so far, a discussion of it seems to be taboo. Nevertheless, there must be a commitment to open the negotiations process, something that Argentina is in a good position to achieve since it currently serves as Chair of the Trade Negotiations Committee."

In response to concerns raised by the group about the secrecy of the negotiations, the Foreign Minister committed the Argentine government to bringing the matter up again in the Trade Negotiations Committee. The Argentine organizations emphasized the expectation of their counterparts throughout the Americas that the HSA would receive a formal response to its letter and that their right to participate democratically in this initiative be respected. In our country, many see as the FTAA as a culmination of the process of transformation and subordination of the economy, politics and society initiated 25 years ago with the repression and the indebtedness generated under the military dictatorship.

The negotiation of the FTAA is at a crucial stage that will culminate in the Third Summit of the Americas, planned for 20 April 2001 in Quebec, Canada. Fifteen days before that date, in Buenos Aires, the hemisphere's trade ministers will meet to define the agreements to be ratified by the hemisphere's Presidents, which will lead to the full implementation of the FTAA by the year 2005.

Both high-level meetings have placed civil-society organizations throughout the Americas in a state of alert and mobilization. They are preparing to make themselves heard on the FTAA and on any initiative that promotes globalization that concentrates wealth and power to serve the interests of financial capital to the detriment of the majority of citizens and that is directed in an authoritarian and undemocratic manner, behind people's backs and without their participation.

A few days after the one-year anniversary of the events in Seattle, with memories still fresh of the events in September in Prague, growing popular mobilizations are resisting -- in our country, as in the rest of the hemisphere -- the consequences of policies of indebtedness, adjustment, privatization and deregulation. Social, religious and labor organizations have therefore set their sights on the meetings in Buenos Aires and Quebec next April.