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Context and Update on the Quito Mobilization
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Ecuador's indigenous people, peasant farmers, labor unions, womens'
groups, students, environmentalists, and neighborhood organizations have
already deposed two presidents who tried to implement neoliberal
reforms. Again and again, when faced with privatizations and cutbacks in
social services, people here have blocked highways across the country,
filled the streets of Quito and the provincial capitals, seized radio
stations and airports, and generally responded with a resounding NO. On
January 21, 2000, when the President announced a plan to dollarize the
economy, they took over the Congress and set up a new government
presided over by the indigenous movement and other social sectors (which
lasted until the military seized control). In short, groups here are
fiercely committed to the struggle against neoliberalism, and have a
very impressive capacity to mobilize.
Incredibly, it is the very site of these mobilizations that 34 commerce
ministers from North and South America have chosen for their
negotiations, on October 31st and November 1st. And they are being
joined by America4s greatest corporate crooks, who have organized the
7th Americas Business Forum in Quito at the same time, to ensure that
their 34 ghostwriters stick to the plan. They hope key pieces of the
FTAA will be finalized in Quito, so it can take effect within a few
years. And they want to show that the countries of Latin America,
already devastated by 20 years of free-market reforms, are nonetheless
lining up to sign on for more of the same.
Ecuador`s social movements have other ideas. They say the FTAA
represents a death sentence for small farmers, indigenous cultures,
local food systems, and endangered forests, that it will create a whole
new set of rights for transnational corporations at the expense of local
communities, that it will deal a devastating blow to the productive
capacity of small countries like Ecuador. They also plan to use the
summit to protest against the militarization of the region under ths
auspices of Plan Colombia, which they view as the military arm of the
economic domination strategy encoded in the FTAA.
For months they have been preparing a welcoming committee of sorts. The
National Campaign Against the FTAA, a coalition that includes most of
the nation4s social movements, is bringing tens of thousands of people
to Quito. They plan to surround the summit with a ring of diversity
and, they say, to shut it down. There is another, smaller coalition that
is talking about bringing about 10,000 more, with the same goal. The
World Social Forum and the Hemispheric Social Alliance are also planning
a counter-summit social forum to explore alternatives to the FTAA.
One way or another, the groups here vow, the negotiators will not
accomplish what they set out to do. And the world will see that the
people of Ecuador have unequivocally rejected the FTAA. Judging from
recent mobilizations, the potential for severe repression is very real,
as is the possibility that the meetings will be dramatically disrupted.
It may well turn out that locating the FTAA summit here was the greatest
miscalculation since the WTO decided that Seattle would be a nice place
to meet.
The coalitions here are calling on people throughout the continent to
join in. They have declared October 27 through November 1 to be
Continental Days of Resistance Against the FTAA (see below for their
call to action). Of course, anyone who can make it here is welcome.
Groups are planning on coming from Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, the
U.S., Canada, and Europe, among other places.
But most people cannot and will not make it to Quito. Ecuador`s social
movements are calling on their counterparts throughout the continent to
take local actions in solidarity with the mobilization in Ecuador, and
to support it in various ways. Already, groups are planning actions in
San Francisco, Massachusetts, Portland, and on campuses across Canada,
in India, Europe, and the other Andean countries. (There are undoubtedly
more actions we have not heard about).
But, by and large, organization is still lacking. The end of October
could see marches, lock-downs, student strikes, social forums,
blockades, teach-ins, die-ins, puppet processions, and work stoppages
from Anchorage to Ashville. The end of October could see groups in North
and South America coordinating actions, applying international pressure
if there is serious repression in Ecuador, providing resources that are
desperately needed for the mobilization in Quito, and laying the
groundwork for even stronger cooperation in the future. There is still
time to make this happen. But time is running out.
This is global capital`s most important meeting of the year, and a
powerful coalition of indigenous people, campesinos, and workers are
mobilizing to shut it down. Now they are asking norteamericanos to join
in. People in the North American “global justice movement” have been
talking for several years about the need to take leadership from
frontline communities in both the North and South. October could be an
unprecedented opportunity to do just that, by organizing local actions
that strengthen continental networks of resistance at the same time as
they build connections to union locals, community groups, immigrants
rights organizations, etc.
We just need to make it happen.
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