An Open Letter To The Senators And Congress Members Of The United States Of America On The Free Trade Treaty
Jorge Enrique Robledo
(Argenpress 14/11/2006)
Translated by Toni Solo
Cordial greetings,
Not one single organization representing urban workers, rural workers, indigenous peoples, students, intellectuals and
other popular sectors in Colombia supports the Free Trade Treaty with the United States. Indeed, the majority of
business people's organizations opposed the treaty's text right up until February 27th, the day its signing was forced
through. But we do not reject the Free Trade Treaty because we are opposed on principle to international negotiations or
relations with the United States. We oppose it because it sacrifices the sovereignty of Colombia, annexes the national
economy to that of the United States and deprives the country of the main tools for development, all of which will bring
poverty to almost all the Colombian people.
The Free Trade Treaty renders irreversible the neo-liberal reforms of the last fifteen years, which caused enormous
losses to industry and agriculture, replaced public monopolies with private ones and generated the worst social disaster
of the twentieth century. The regression in employment and poverty was so great that the country has yet to recoup the
indicators prior to the crisis and suffers some of the worst social inequality in the world.
Official studies indicate that Colombia's imports as a result of the Free Trade Treaty will grow at double the rate of
those of the United States and that Colombian exporters, in competition with US exporters, will lose sales to the Andean
countries. Because Colombia will eliminate its tariffs and the United States, apart from enjoying the power of an
economy 129 times bigger, will maintain its immense subsidies. Furthermore, Colombia almost eliminated its sanitary
controls for products from the United States while the White House maintained all its own against Colombian goods.
As a result of what was imposed in the intellectual property chapter, Colombia gives up production of complex industrial
goods and progress in science and technology. This chapter, will also cause sickness and death among Colombians since it
will make medicines dearer by about US$900m a year according to the Panamerican Health Organization. And the agreements
on telecommunications and arbitration tribunals damage the interests of official businesses and the Colombian State.
The norms on investments and public procurement concede unprecedented advantages to US monopoly businesses in Colombia
and it is a cruel joke to say that Colombians will enjoy the same advantages in the United States. It is especially
serious that the Treaty snatches away from Colombia its right to a balance of payments clause, a mechanism authorised
even by the IMF and whose absence could mean disastrous losses for the country. And the Free Trade Treaty also
consolidates the handing over to foreigners of the financial system imposing unpayable costs on Colombia for it to
decide exchange and interest rates.
The Free Trade Treaty's supporters say that US investments will more than cover the damage the Treaty will cause
Colombians' ability to generate internal savings. But they keep quiet about how environmental and labour conditions will
deteriorate in order to attract those investments, changes that the Free Trade Treaty expressly authorizes (Articles
17.2 and 18.2). And it is common knowledge that Colombia now has various legal reforms to cheapen the price of labour,
that it is easier to maintain an illegal armed organization in the country than a trades union and that an ideological
campaign is under way to cut the minimum wage, just as it is well known that the current government is so uninterested
in the environment that it was capable of fumigating the La Macarena national park with powerful toxins.
Our rejection of the Free Trade Treaty also takes into account that the destruction of agriculture may oblige more
Colombians to grow coca and poppy and that "free trade" enriches United States monopoly businesses while the economic
conditions of its people deteriorate.
Those of us in the Congresses of Colombia and the Untied States who hold with authentically democratic ideas must work
hard for better relations between the two countries. But in all sincerity I tell you that the imperial logic that
inspires the Free Trade Treaty opposes those relations. And so that is why one of our duties is to reject that Treaty.
Attentively.
Jorge Enrique Robledo
Senator of the Republic of Colombia
Polo Democrático Alternativo
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toni solo is an activist based in Central America