Posted on 8-9-2003
Iraq
- Auckland - Protest
Aucklanders have the opportunity to join a protest to mark
the worldwide day of action and protest the NZ government's
decision to send troops to Iraq at the end of this month to
assist the US/UK occupation. There will be a rally outside the
US Consulate, Customs St, from 11am on Saturday September 13.
The following statement was issued by United for Peace in the
USA. September 13: Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate
Globalization and War Kicking off a Fall Campaign of Action
for Peace and Justice
From September 10 to 14, the World Trade Organization (WTO)
will hold its Fifth Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Pushed
by multinational corporations, the United States, the European
Union, and other developed countries are seeking to launch a
new round of "free trade" negotiations and expand
corporate globalization - further eroding human rights, workers'
rights, environmental protections, and democracy - in the interest
of corporate control. Popular movements in Mexico and their
international allies will mark these meetings with massive demonstrations
to demand a world that puts democracy and human dignity ahead
of corporate profits. Solidarity actions around the world will
focus on September 13 as a Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate
Globalization and War. We call on people throughout the United
States to join this global uprising for peace and justice by
organizing events in your community throughout the week leading
up to the WTO Ministerial and on September 13. Resist the WTO
and the failed model of corporate globalization, and highlight
the links between militarism and "free trade," through
a wide variety of creative means: teach-ins, vigils, protests,
direct action, street theater, festivals of resistance, cultural
events, meetings with elected officials, public forums, and
so on. These September actions to derail the WTO will kick off
a powerful autumn campaign of action for peace and justice,
involving major mobilizations for immigrant rights, against
the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and against militarism
and occupation.
WHOSE TRADE ORGANIZATION?
The WTO is designed and managed for the benefit of transnational
corporations at the expense of most of the world's population
and the environment. The neoliberal agenda of "free trade,"
deregulation, privatization and special corporate protections
enshrined in the WTO leads to greater poverty, inequity, gender
inequality and indebtedness, while concentrating the world's
wealth in the hands of a few. The corporate agenda implemented
by the WTO pits worker against worker and nation against nation
in a race to the bottom. The last time the WTO met in North
America, in late 1999, tens of thousands of people converged
on Seattle to expose the real agenda behind "free trade":
devastating the environment and eroding basic rights, protections,
and services for the vast majority of the world's population.
Four years after the historic showdown at the 3rd WTO Ministerial
in Seattle, we live in a changed and even more dangerous world.
Using the horrible terrorist attacks against the U.S. of 2001
as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration
is on a reckless quest for empire, combining the global might
of the United States military with the global reach of massive
corporations. The Bush doctrine of preemptive strike and permanent
warfare goes hand-in-hand with a program of economic domination
through "free trade," and, not coincidentally, masks
the woeful U.S. economic situation.
THE "WATCHTOWER STATE"
Under the rules of the WTO and proposed agreements like the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the government's role
in regulating the marketplace to promote fair labor conditions,
access to basic services, safe products and a clean environment
is strictly constrained. WTO rules provide a "security
exception" that protects and fosters weapons manufacture
and the arms trade. Under agreements being negotiated now, virtually
all other governmental services - including schools, health
care, public transit, water supply and other public utilities
- could be subject to corporate takeover. Basic worker and consumer
rights and environmental protections could be jettisoned as
"unfair barriers to trade." The vision of movernment
enshrined in the WTO and the FTAA is a "watchtower state"
- a fortress security state on a permanent war footing.
THE ASSAULT ON IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
Corporate globalization has destroyed the lives and livelihood
of millions of workers and farmers throughout the world. Many
are forced to leave their homes, their land, and often their
countries in search of increasingly scarce jobs. Yet trade agreements
that protect the flow of money and goods across borders don't
allow the free movement of people. Borders are militarized and
immigrants are criminalized - even as millions of people are
dislocated by "free trade." More than nine million
undocumented workers who live in the United States today lack
basic legal protections and human rights, living in constant
fear of round-ups, detentions, and deportation. The WTO and
FTAA would create new injustices for immigrants by giving corporations
the right to import people to work in industrialized countries
like the United States, while maintaining the low wages and
minimal worker protections of their home countries, creating
a system of legalized sweatshops.
ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE
We have before us a choice: the world of militarism and corporate
globalization, or a world built on global solidarity, rooted
in a foundation of democracy, dignity, sustainability, and cooperation.
This fall we have an opportunity to bring our vision to life,
through a series of actions and campaigns that will build toward
a better world.
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