Bi-National Resolution on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) DRAFT

The North American Free Trade Agreement and its offspring, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, represent a race to the bottom for communities across the hemisphere. As people of color and indigenous peoples living on both sides of the United States-Mexico border, we have experienced first hand the devastation these imposed trade policies have wreaked on our lives.

WHEREAS, the criminalization of migratory workers has created an underground existence, misery wages, prison and death for crossing the border in search of jobs and a livelihood.

• Thousands of migratory workers have died crossing the border;
• Thousands of migratory workers have been imprisoned for crossing the border illegally.

WHEREAS, violence has increased on the border. The presence of thousands of border patrol agents, along with military personnel, has resulted in the militarization of the border.

• The killing of Ezequiel Hernandez, Jr., by U.S. Marines;
• Hundreds of young women maquiladora workers have been brutally assassinated in Ciudad Juarez;
• Rancher Samuel Blackwood was merely fined and charged with a misdemeanor for the killing of Eusebio de Haro in Brackettville, Texas.

WHEREAS, labor is exploited at every front, NAFTA has created unemployment and wages have plummeted in the United States and Mexico:

• The Border Industrialization Program, initiated in 1965, has failed to meet its promises to bring about prosperity in the border region with the 'twin plant concept' (the incubator for assembly plants (maquiladoras);
• Over one million manufacturing jobs have been lost since NAFTA began in 1994;
• Over one million more Mexicano workers earn less than the minimum wage of $5/day since 1994;
• One million Mexicano workers have been forced out of farming and into manufacturing jobs on the border or in the US since 1994.

WHEREAS, NAFTA side bar provisions have not protected our environment, our water sources, air and land have been irrevocably disturbed and contaminated by US and other multinational corporations in their hunger for profits.

• Workers and entire communities have been exposed to dangerous chemicals. Babies are born without brains (anencephaly) as we pay the highest price - our future generations.
• US Corporation, Metalclad, sued a Mexican State to allow a toxic disposal site, claiming that the environmental zoning law forbidding the dump constituted an effective seizure of the property rights extended by NAFTA, the 'offending' government must compensate the company.
• No new infrastructure has been developed on the US-Mexico border.

WHEREAS, FTAA is worse than NAFTA, which has frozen the local economies of Latin America, stopped cooperation, trade and economic integration. This has resulted in the social and economic deterioration of these countries in a downward spiral to the bottom.

• Mexico's economy was cut in half in 1994
• Produced 24 billionaires in Mexico in the first four years of NAFTA.
• Mexico's annual growth went from near 7% before NAFTA to 3.4% in the 1990's under NAFTA.
• NAFTA took $48 billion out of Latin America in the 7-years of NAFTA
• Mexico's foreign debt has doubled since 1982.
• Mexico has become one of the biggest importers of staples, corn and rice, but before NAFTA exported corn and rice.

WHEREAS, FTAA is a mechanism to control raw materials and labor in Mexico and throughout Latin America; FTAA is the annexation of Latin America.

• 44% of Latin America is poor with 300 million people throughout the hemisphere live in poverty.
• Infant mortality rates are 35 per 1000 and
• The population is 13% illiterate.

WHEREAS, the FTAA will lead to the replacement of local currencies by the Dollar.

AND WHEREAS, the FTAA will increase the debt of poor and developing nations; we call for the cancellation of the debt.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the member organizations of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and our allies oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement being proposed by the US administration;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the member organizations of the Southwest Network and our allies are opposed to the 'fast track' authority demanded by President Bush and contained in the Crane Bill (H.R. 2149).