• Witness for Peace • www.witnessforpeace.org • (202) 547-6112•
.
FARMERS AND FOOD SECURITY: Colombian farmers are not able to
compete with U.S. agricultural goods due to, among other factors, U.S.
government subsidies. The U.S. government subsidizes farmers to the tune
of $24 billion a year, meaning that they can produce at below the cost of
production, thus making it impossible for Colombian agricultural to compete
on a level playing field. Colombian farmers also often lack technology, infrastructure, and/
or physical access to markets. Without protections against U.S. agricultural goods, many
Colombians will lose their livelihood. Without alternatives for feeding their families, many
Colombian farmers have no choice but to grow illicit crops, such as coca (the raw material
for cocaine), join an illegal armed group, or leave their farm and become another of
Colombia’s already nearly four million internally displaced individuals.
WORKERS: Colombia is able to compete well in the global race to the
bottom of wages and labor rights since Colombia is the number one killer of
trade unionists. Since 1991, over 2,200 Colombian union members have
been murdered. The FTA would give incentives to multinational
corporations to take advantage of the extremely violent situation for
Colombian workers in order to continue to prioritize their own profits over worker rights.
U.S. companies such as Coca-Cola, Chiquita, and Drummond Coal have already
been accused of and/or sued for hiring paramilitaries who kill, threaten, torture, and
kidnap Colombian union members. The FTA would push Colombia to lower already low
wages, to weaken already poor labor standards, and to remove or reduce laws that once
guaranteed workers the right to receive overtime pay, the right to collective bargaining, and
the right to worker’s compensation.
PRIVITAZATION: The privatization requirements of the FTA could grant
multinationals corporations the right to further buy and control sectors of the
economy, such as Colombian judicial systems, water supplies,
telecommunications, energy, healthcare, transportation, education, the postal
service, or even police departments. Corporations would then be able to decide
what areas to serve and not serve based on profitability—not need or right.
Why Colombian and US Groups Oppose the FTA
Colombia: Where U.S. Policy Kills
U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
Organize to STOP the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
and its prioritization of corporate profits over people!
While the FTA is sold as a
trade agreement, in reality,
it serves to encourage and
protect U.S. investments
that benefit large corpora-
tions, not Colombian citi-
zens.
Rather than encouraging so-
cial investment in Colombia
that would help the millions
living in extreme poverty, the
FTA will create more misery by
paving the way for the growth
of large multinational extractive
industries, such as coal and oil
production, oil palm planta-
tions, logging operations, and
maritime port expansion.
Most of the current and
planned U.S. investments is
focused in resource-rich re-
gions where paramilitary and
military violence has opened
the way for export-oriented
mega-projects by displacing
local populations of Afro-
Colombian, indigenous, and
small-scale farmers from their
ancestral lands. Neither these
communities nor the Colom-
bian population
as a whole
would receive
any significant
percentage of
the profits being
reaped from
their lands.
AFRO AND INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES: The FTA jeopardizes self-
determination, autonomy, and economic, socio-cultural, and environmental
rights of Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations. These communities
have fought hard to have their ancestral communities, territories, and their
own governing structures respected. The FTA would require changes to the
Colombian Constitution that would result in the denial of these populations’
communal landholding status and allow for the sale of their territories.
WHAT IS FREE TRADE?
Free trade is the elimination and/or lowering of taxes and other trade regulations between countries with the purpose of increas-
ing exports and in theory, promoting economic growth and creating market access for all signing countries. Proponents suggest
that the FTA will create jobs and economic stability for Colombians, yet experience in the U.S. and abroad has shown that
free-market policies lead to more poverty for the majority and increased wealth for a few multinational corporations.
• Witness for Peace • www.witnessforpeace.org • (202) 547-6112•
Join WITNESS FOR PEACE in the Struggle To
Stop the U.S.-Colombia FTA!!
President Bush is pushing for a vote in 2008. Colombians across the country are mobilizing to oppose this FTA which
prioritizes corporate profits over people. Small farmers, indigenous people, Afro-Colombians, women, students, workers
and churches recognize that the FTA would exacerbate the current human rights crisis in Colombia and cause long-term re-
gional instability. They need the support of the U.S. grassroots community to stop this disastrous and un-fair trade
agreement.
♦ Call Your Congressperson and Senator! Tell them to vote “NO” on the U.S.-Colombia FTA and other FTA’s with Latin
American countries. Speak out against further U.S. military aid and training to the Colombian government.
♦Educate Your Community! Organize a discussion group on free trade, violence in Colombia ,and the impacts of free trade
and militarization in your own community. Submit op-eds and letters to the editor that address FTA’s and Colombia’s internal
conflict to your local newspaper. Read “Forced from Home” (found at www.witnessforpeace.org) to learn more about how
free trade has caused massive migration into the U.S. from Mexico and Central America.
♦Participate in a Witness for Peace Delegation to Colombia! Travel schedules are on our website.
♦Join Witness for Peace! Find your local WfP regional organizer on the WfP website.
What does the FTA mean for the US?
What do FTA’s have to do with Immigration?
The vast majority of profits made from FTAs bene-
fit multinational corporations, not the majority of
the people in the U.S. or Colombia. As we’ve
seen with NAFTA in Mexico, the FTA model has
not had many benefits for the people who need
them the most:
• NAFTA has destroyed the Mexican countryside,
resulting in the loss of 2 million jobs.
• Mexicans, having to chose between migration
and starvation, have migrated to the US. The
number of Mexicans living in the US has nearly
doubled since NAFTA was passed to about 11.2
million, approximately 10% of the Mexican
population. 2/3 of Mexicans living in the US
have come since the passage of NAFTA.
• Since NAFTA was ratified the average cost of
food in Mexico has gone up 257% while aver-
age purchasing power has decreased by 50%.
• One third of the 800,000 manufacturing jobs in
Mexico that were created after the passage of
NAFTA have disappeared while the Mexican
minimum wage has dropped by 20%.
In addition, since the passage of NAFTA over an
estimated one million US manufacturing jobs have
been lost as corporations search for the country
with cheapest wages and the poorest labor rights.
Is this the form of economic trade
we want to promote?
ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE: The FTA puts the inter-
ests of large U.S. companies over the health of Colom-
bians. The FTA includes strengthening intellectual
property rights (governing patent law) which will allow
U.S. companies to extend patents on medicines, thus
taking away millions of people’s access to generic
medicine. According to the Pan-American Health Or-
ganization, the FTA will result in an increase of approximately $900 mil-
lion in annual medicinal costs for Colombians. Intellectual property rights
provisions would place patents on traditional medicinal knowledge and
natural resources (water, plants, wind etc.) without prior agreement or
community consent. This means that the traditional medicinal practices
will then be rendered illegal for the communities from which it comes and
that natural resources of Colombia, one of the most bio-diverse countries
in the world, could become property of and controlled by U.S. companies.
THE ENVIRONMENT: The FTA proposes reforms that
give national and transnational corporations greatly in-
creased access to exploit natural resources such as bio-
diversity, fisheries, water, and minerals. They would also
have the right to challenge environmental protection laws
in Colombia as “barriers to trade.”
What’s Different About Colombia?
While all free trade agreements are harmful, the US-Colombia FTA is espe-
cially critical to oppose due to Colombia’s atrocious human rights re-
cord. Colombia’s government and military have been implicated in many
human rights violations due to direct contact with paramilitary death squads
that appear on the U.S.’s list of designated terrorists. As of March 2008,
over 85 Colombian political leaders have been detained for their in-
volvement with paramilitaries, including current and past members of Con-
gress, council members, governors, mayors, state legislators, and the for-
mer director of DAS—Colombia’s FBI.
Colombia: Where U.S. Policy Kills
U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
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