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For Immediate Release: November 20th, 2003
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Global Justice Ecology Project 802-578-****
STOP FTAA Media Hotline: 305-576-****
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Environmentalists, Labor and Latin American
Activists Unite to Form “ECO-BLOC” Against Free Trade Impacts on People
and the Earth
Press Conference: Bayfront Park, Biscayne
(under the “Bayfront Park” sign)
Thursday November 20, 2003, noon
Environmentalists, Labor and Latin American Activists Unite to Form
“ECO-BLOC” Against Free Trade Impacts on People and the Earth
In a broad show of unity reminiscent of the historic “Teamsters and
Turtles” alliance that emerged at the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, labor,
ecology , global justice groups and people from Latin America are coming
together to march with one voice against the FTAA and
Northern-dominated trade agreements.
This “ECO-BLOC” will be a colorful part of Thursday’s march against the
FTAA. It will include hundreds of marchers wearing green, waving earth
flags, and banners and signs decrying the impact the FTAA will have on
forests and rivers, its potential to increase global warming and
contaminate food and forests with genetically modified organisms, as
well as paving the way for water privatization. The ECO-BLOC will amass
at 1:30pm under the “Bayfront Park” sign.
Speakers at the ECO-BLOC press conference that precedes the march
include Jorge Coronado from the Popular Encounter in Costa Rica, Magda
Lanuza from the Nicaraguan Social Movement, Giulius Aprigio of the Green
Alternative Collective in Brazil, Zoila Lagos of the Coalition of
Honduran Agro-Industrial and Banana Unions, Alberto Villarreal of the
Trade and Environment Program (Friends of the Earth) in Uruguay, Tara
Widner, a steelworker and Board member of the Alliance for Sustainable
Jobs and the Environment, and Anne Petermann, of Global Justice Ecology
Project.
The North American Free Trade Agreement has already cost the U.S. tens
of thousands of good paying manufacturing jobs that went to Mexican
sweatshops. The environmental destruction and labor abuses in Mexico
around these sweatshops have been devastating. Thousands of Mexican
farmers have been displaced from their lands due to cheap U.S. grain
imports flooding Mexico’s market. The FTAA--called NAFTA on
steroids--will accelerate this “race to the bottom,” impacting U.S.
labor and the peoples of Latin America, and the earth.
The ECO-BLOC first made its first appearance at the September, 2002
protest against the World Bank in Washington, DC. “The Miami ECO-BLOC is
advancing a powerful alliance between labor groups and
environmentalists,” stated Anne Petermann, co-Director of Global Justice
Ecology Project. “Global Justice Ecology Project, Jobs with Justice and
the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment are helping
bridge the artificial gap between labor and environmentalists which was
created through the ‘jobs vs. the environment’ lie promoted by
corporations. This is a false dichotomy. The fact is, we are all in
the same boat and the FTAA is the iceberg,” she continued.
The ECO-BLOC will march in solidarity with the people of Latin America
who will be impacted by the FTAA. Latin American countries helped
collapse the World Trade Organization talks in Cancun, and could also
derail the FTAA talks in Miami. “We are here to let the Trade Ministers
from Latin America know that there is a significant portion of
Americans who oppose the FTAA,” said Karen Pickett, Board member for
Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, a network of labor
and environmental advocates who have been on a month and a half long
“March to Miami” organizing anti-FTAA events across the country. “These
Miami FTAA talks could well sound the death knell for the FTAA,” she
continued. “Let’s hope so.”
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