4 RECALCA: Colombian Action Network in Response to Free Trade and FTAA. March, 2007
A Bitter Harvest for Colombia’s Agriculture in the FTA
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The truth On the FTAA
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he chapter on access to markets, with reference to Colombia’s agricultural sector, establishes complete liberalization of imports in the course of a few years. Colombia’s ability to feed its population through domestic agricultural production will be seriously impaired. Rural poverty will increase which will lead to greater social unrest, violence and increasing production of illegal crops.
The Asymmetrical U.S. and Colombian agricultural sectors The U.S. agriculture sector accounts for between one and two percent of total GDP.1 Despite this relatively small size it is the recipient of substantial government price supports, support for specific products and other forms of assistance, to the tune of 71.269 billion dollars. Colombia’s State support amounts to 1.143 billion dollars2, one/ sixty-seventh of U.S agricultural assistance. For 2007, Colombia’s agriculture budget amounts to 419 million dollars3, including the 169 million dollars of the “Agriculture, Guaranteed Income” project; this is one/222th of the U.S. budget for agriculture which amounts to 93 billion dollars 4. This U.S. agriculture budget is almost as large as all of Colombia’s GDP, only 13 billion dollars less than Colombian GDP (106.000 billion dollars, adjusted for inflation, 2005 prices)5 in 2005. The U.S. Farm Bill (Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002), made up of anti-cyclical payments, marketing loans and direct payments, has negative effects on rural producers around the world for several reasons: First, because of the effects of the linkage between anti-cyclical payments and prices and volume of production. The lower the prices and the larger the volume of production, payments to farmers increase. This becomes a factor of distortion by eliminating the possibility of decreasing production acreage. Even in the face of low international prices, or low production yields, farmers have no incentive to decrease acreage under cultivation, or total output. To do
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Lineamientos para una estrategia de negociación de Colombia en acceso a mercados en las negociaciones del ALCA. FEDESARROLLO. [Guidelines for a negotiating strategy for Colombian access to markets in FTAA talks] Agosto, 2003. El agro colombiano frente al TLC con los Estados Unidos. [Colombian agriculture confronts FTA with U.S.] Luis Jorge Garay, Et al. Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural de Colombia. 2004. Author’s estimates. Fuente: [Source] Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público. Presupuesto General de la Nación 2007. United States Department of Agriculture. 2007 agriculture budget. Banco de la República. PIB total [total GDP, 2007 prices] a precios de 2004. http://www.banrep. gov.co/estad/dsbb/real_008a.xls
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3 so would lead to their losing guaranteed government payments.6 Second, because it fosters surplus production by allowing farmers to produce at costs higher than international prices, thereby exerting a downward pressure on product prices. Third, because it increases concentration and specialization in the so-called “eight major crops”7. These crops represent 74% of total U.S. crops and receive between 70-80% of total government payments.8 U.S. agriculture subsidies allow American producers to sell their crops below cost of production, a practice deemed illegal in world commerce and known as dumping. Under these conditions, the U.S. exports corn at 30% below the cost of production, wheat at 40% below and cotton at 57% below, to mention just a few examples. Nations importing these subsidized products suffer serious consequences. They lose their internal markets to foreign subsidized competition, while being unable to export successfully because, in foreign markets, “the idea of competition is merely illusory”.9
Colombia surrendered the agricultural sector in the FTA In the face of this unsettling reality, the government of President Uribe agreed, by signing the FTA, to eliminate all tools of agricultural protection, such as the Andean System of Price [Floor-Ceiling] Bands, the Public Administration for Contingencies as well as tariffs which will soon reach zero level. What was negotiated was merely the time frame for lifting all agricultural protection. At the same time however, the United States government, in an unequal and asymmetrical manner, will maintain domestic supports for its agricultural producers who will continue to export their surpluses below the cost of production, i.e. engage in dumping. By signing the agreement Colombia accepted clauses contrary to the national interest and the constitutional mandate to protect the food security of its citizens. By signing the Most Favored Nation clause, Colombia agreed to give to the United States any advantages Colombia may offer in agreements with any other countries. However, this is not a reciprocal 6
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El agro colombiano frente al TLC con los Estados Unidos. [Colombian agriculture confronts FTA with U.S.] Luis Jorge Garay, Et al. Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural de Colombia. 2004. p.p. 114, 115 y 116. Corn, soy, wheat, sorghum, barley, oats, cotton and rice. Rethinking US Agricultural Policy. Daryll Ray et al. University of Tennessee. Septiembre, 2003. p. 8 Cómo se negoció de rodillas el capítulo agrícola del TLC. [Negotiating the agriculture chapter on one’s knees] Aurelio Suárez Montoya. 27 marzo, 2006.
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The truth On the FTAA clause, so Colombia will not be able to access any advantages given by the U.S. in other FTAs with other countries.10 The FTA, that is, the deepening of the policies of “economic opening,” seeks to specialize the country in tropical crops for exports, presumably because of comparative advantages. As a long term policy the Colombian government holds that “The expansion of the agricultural sector cannot rely on the internal market.”11 Its strategy for national and agricultural growth relies on the development of export capacity for the following items: tobacco, manioc, cotton, potatoes, cocoa, bell peppers, broccoli, onions, asparagus, red peppers, lettuce, capers, uchuva [cape gooseberry], banana, tahiti lemons, maracuyá [passion fruit], pitahaya [yellow dragon fruit], pineapple, mangoes, Feijoa [pineapple guava], cut [oak, pine, teak, Melina] lumber, sugar cane and palm oil (for bio-fuel) 12. These items do not constitute a basic diet for human beings. By way of the FTA the Colombian government aims to turn the country’s agriculture solely into tropical crops while importing, in exchange, food staples from the United States. This will lead to the loss of Colombian food sovereignty. In the case of bio-fuels—a priority for the national government—there are worries that groups of narco-traffickers and paramilitaries have appropriated extensive areas of commercial agriculture, by forcing people off their lands. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office (the Colombian government’s own watchdog office) the government has proposed a new law that would legalize titles to lands illegally acquired by armed paramilitary groups.13 According to the Prosecutor, it would appear that the Uribe government’s main objective “was to give legitimacy to the cultivation of palm oil against a background of systematic and recurrent violations of human rights, of threats and murders against anyone opposing the land grab”14. This approach would be repeated in the case of crops with long-term yields such as rubber, tree farms, and others which require large capital investments. Only those who have acquired and monopolized land from poor, small peasant communities, would benefit. 10
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Impacto del TLC en el sector pecuario. [Impact of FTA on agricultural sector] Jorge Enrique Robledo. Debate en la comisión quinta del Senado de la República de Colombia. [Hearings, 5th Commission, Colombian Senate] 12 de septiembre de 2006. Departamento Nacional de Planeación. 2019, [National Planning Ministry] Visión Colombia II centenario. www.dnp.gov.co Ibid ‘Ley de tierras podría prestarse para el lavado de activos’. [Land law could be used to launder moneys] El Espectador. 23 octubre, 2006 Concepto del Procurador General de la Nación, Edgardo Maya, [Statement by Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office about the law of Rural Development]sobre la Ley de Desarrollo Rural,
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5 The government lies to the country when it promotes the FTA The arguments by Uribe’s government in support of negotiations and signing of the FTA contain several grave inaccuracies which do not reflect actual reality. The government argues as follows: First, that the FTA gives access to new markets. In reality the biggest success of the negotiations was to avoid the loss of what was already available via the Andean Preference System (APTDEA). In fact, practically all agricultural products not subjected to tariffs under the FTA already enjoy that status under the existing preference system.15 Second, that Colombia obtains real access to the U.S. market. In reality the Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measures (SPM) were not even the subject of negotiations. All Colombia obtained was a ‘side letter’ from the U.S. promising to “cooperate” and to make “efforts” to promote the “implementation of WTO regulations regarding SPM.” In other words, the U.S. takes no steps towards eliminating non-tariff barriers and merely announces its intention to comply with WTO standards.16 Even then no binding mechanism was instituted, so that such “efforts” are left to the goodwill of the U.S. government. On the contrary, the text of the FTA forcefully states that “No Party may have recourse to dispute settlement under this Agreement for any matter arising under this chapter”.17 According to Juan Lucas Restrepo, who led the Colombian negotiating group on this chapter “what we feared, and still fear, is that in actual practice, access by Colombian products will be restricted indefinitely by means of non-tariff arguments, i.e. sanitary arguments, demanding excessively rigorous compliance with sanitary and toxicity norms”18. Paradoxically, a study by the National Planning Ministry19 states that “if the United States were to eliminate all non-tariff barriers against all countries, this would have negative effects on Colombia”. This study warns that official government statements assume a process of trade liberalization between the U.S. and Colombia that takes place in a vacuum. The official presentations don’t take into account that Colom-
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presentada por el Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural. 2006. La negociación agropecuaria en el TLC, alcances y consecuencias. [The FTA’s agricultural negotiation, impacts and losses] Luis Jorge Garay, Et al. Planeta Paz. 2006. 182 p. Colombia FTA. Side letter. Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Colombia FTA. Chapter 6. Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Article 6.2.2. Citado por Jorge Robledo: Impacto del TLC en el sector pecuario. [Cited by Jorge Robledo: Impact of FTA on agricultural sector] Jorge Enrique Robledo. Debate en la comisión quinta [Hearings, 5th Senate Commission] del Senado de la República de Colombia. 12 de septiembre de 2006. TLC y Barreras No Arancelarias (BNA). [The FTA and non-tariff barriers NTB] Daniel Vaughan. Departamento Nacional de Planeación. Febrero, 2005.
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The truth On the FTAA bian access to the finite U.S. market means that Colombian products will have to compete in that market with products of other countries, with no guarantee of success. Third, that agriculture will benefit from exports of bio-fuels. Under current circumstances the only winners, with regards to ethanol, are not the cane growers but the ethanol manufacturers. Additionally, the idea of exports to the U.S. is merely an illusion since current production cannot supply even the local market for ethanol. More to the point: under the current system of Andean Preferences (ATPDEA) it is possible to export ethanol to the U.S. tariff-free. If it hasn’t happened it’s because the sugarethanol mills find it more profitable to sell ethanol nationally than to export it. If in the future Colombia succeeds in exporting ethanol to the U.S, it would be only thanks to the subsidies provided to the cane sugar mills by Colombian workers, cane growers, consumers, and the government.20
Imports from U.S. will cause losses in agricultural employment and cultivated cropland. Official studies foresee a negative agricultural trade balance as a consequence of the FTA.21 A study by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (2004) pointed to unfavorable expectations for Colombia’s agriculture because of access restrictions to the U.S. market. It further pointed out that “the rural sector will suffer under the FTA unless a price stabilization system, such as SAFP, is maintained”22. This forecast will likely be on target given that the government eliminated aforesaid stabilization program. A study by Colombia’s Banco de la República [Central Bank] estimates that the FTA will lead to an increase of $571 million dollars in new agricultural imports from the U.S., while Colombian exports will only increase $191 million dollars, i.e. three times less. The study also indicates that the FTA will lead to a change in the pattern of foreign trade: Colombian exports to countries (other than the U.S) will diminish at the same time that a larger proportion of its imports will come from the U.S.23 20
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Una mirada desde el campo a la agroindustria de la caña de azúcar en Colombia. [A look at the sugar cane agribusiness from the viewpoint of the countryside] Carlos Azcárate y Mario Valencia. PROCAÑA. Enero, 2007. According to a 2003 study by the National Planning Ministry on the effects of a bilateral treaty with the U.S., Colombian grain imports would increase 26.49%, beef imports 14.27%. El agro colombiano frente al TLC con los Estados Unidos. [Colombia rural sector confronts FTA with U.S.] Op Cit. p. 183. Impactos del TLC en la Balanza de Pagos de Colombia hasta 2010. Jorge Toro, Et al. Banco de
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7 The most recent research on the consequences of the FTA for Colombia’s rural sector points to a severe impact on internal prices that would begin as soon as the FTA is enacted. Results of that study are presented in the table below:
(a) Note: 1 hectare = 2.5 acres. Fuente: La negociación agropecuaria en el TLC, alcances y consecuencias. Luis Jorge Garay, Et al. Planeta Paz. Bogotá, 2006. 182 p. [The FTA’s agricultural negotiations, impacts and losses]
In terms of the net agricultural balance sheet, Colombia will import, in the first year of the FTA, 4,629,000 tons of foodstuffs, thereby increasing by 70% agricultural imports from the United States. Meanwhile Colombia will increase its exports by 63,000 tons annually.25 That is to say, Colombia’s gain will be 73 times less than what the U.S. will get. Not even flower production, whose business leaders have led the way in defending national government policies, will escape unscathed from the ravages of the FTA. As a matter of fact, some of the strongest arguments advanced by the executive branch in support of the signing of the FTA with the United States were based on presumed new opportunities for this agriculture branch. Supposedly, the permanent establishment under the proposed treaty of a system of tariff preferences for flower exports, basically adding up to a 30 million dollar subsidy for exporters, would ensure growth and in-
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la República. Enero, 2006. p.p. 21 y 35. (On the impact of the FTA on the Colombian Balance of Payments to 2010] With the ‘economic opening’ of the 1990s, the government cut off protection for these crops. Between 1990 and 2005 wheat acreage dropped by half. Land devoted to barley crops was reduced 94%. The FTA becomes the decisive factor that will lead to the complete disappearance of those crops, according to a study by the Nation Association of Grain Growers-FENALCE. La negociación agropecuaria en el TLC, alcances y consecuencias. [FTA agricultural negotiations, Impacts and Losses] Op Cit.
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The truth On the FTAA creased employment. However, as a result of world-wide flower oversupply, the U.S. transnational Dole Fresh Flowers announced in September, 2006 that it would close a number of flower farms in Colombia and Ecuador and fire more than 3,500 workers.26
De-population of the countryside will generate more poverty and more violence. As a result of the FTA, at least 365,000 hectares will be pulled out of production. Some 86,000 peasants, having lost their livelihood, will have to find other means of survival. Some will move to cities to live in the urban villa-miserias. Other will turn, as a last resort, to coca growing. The lack of economic opportunity in Colombia’s rural areas is the fuel that feeds the scourge of violence afflicting the country. The situation worsens given the cutbacks in agricultural protection resulting from trade liberalization policies. The failure of the fight against the drug business in Colombia takes place at the same time as agriculture is increasingly losing all state support. After six years of Plan Colombia and 4.7 billion American dollars, the price, quality, and availability of cocaine in the streets of U.S. cities is exactly the same. According to John Caulkins, of Carnegie Mellon University, the war against drugs has cost American taxpayers nearly 40 billion dollars, yet today there is more coca-planted acreage in Colombia than before the start of Plan Colombia.27 Uribe’s government used to claim that, by 2006, not a single hectare (1hectare = 2.5 acres) of cocaine would be cultivated. But increases in seizures, fumigation and interdiction have not translated into an effective strategy. If it had, all indicators would be on the way down, proof of the elimination of narco-trafficking. Yes, the current data indicates a growth of 32% of fumigation under the Uribe administration and an increase, by 2006, of 47% in the quantity of cocaine seized, relative to 2002.28 But the number of hectares under cocaine cultivation grew, according to the U.S. State Department from 113.850 hectares in 2003 to 144.000 hectares in 2005.29 In 2002 Colombia produced 26
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La crisis de la floricultura. [Crisis in flower crops] Aurelio Suárez Montoya. La Tarde, Pereira. 17 septiembre, 2006. Colombian´s coca survive U.S. Plan to Uproot It. By Juan Forero. The New York Times. August 19, 2006. Achievements of consolidating defense and democratic security policies. (Colombia Ministry of Defense) Ministerio de Defensa de Colombia. Enero, 2007. Centro de Estadísticas. [Statistics. Colombia Ministry of Defense] Ministerio de Defensa de Colombia. www.mindefensa.gov.co [144,000 hectares =360,000acres]
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9 80% of the world’s cocaine crop30; today Colombia produces 90% of the cocaine destined for the U.S. market.31
Fuente: Logros de la consolidación de la política de defensa y seguridad democrática. [Source: Achievements of consolidating defense and democratic security policies] Ministerio de Defensa de Colombia. Enero, 2007.
As we can see in the graph above, the coca cultivation area remains pretty much the same as in 2001, as per U.S. State Department data. The situation led U.S. Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) to wonder: “if more acres are being fumigated, how come there is more cocaine being grown?” In the same manner, Sandro Calvani, Chief of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime commented sardonically that “Colombia is the only country in the world where the problem of eradication has been resolved 10 times.” 32 While more efforts are directed towards eliminating narco-trafficking and terrorism, urban violence continues unabated. A large increase in theft took place between 2002 and 2006. Residential robberies increased by 4,149 cases (26%), personal theft by 21,352 cases (64%) and commercial theft by 4,267 cases (36%). Forced displacement of entire families from the countryside to urban centers is causing a decline in urban security.
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2002 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. U.S. Department of State. Chapter IV, page 19. 2002 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. U.S. Department of State. March, 2007. Colombian´s coca survive U.S. Plan to Uproot It. Op Cit.
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The truth On the FTAA The policies of economic liberalization About 12 million people, or 27% of the Colombian population, live in the country side. Agricultural production amounts to 12.5% of GDP33, generating 23% of national employment. Despite its significance, the national government has abandoned public involvement in the agricultural sector, leading to a feeble average growth in the last decade of 1.5% in agriculture. 34 The effects of implementing the “economic opening” polices in the nineties offer relevant evidence as to what the consequences of the enactment of the trade liberalization contemplated under the FTA will be. Elimination of tariffs in the agricultural sector led to a 195% increase in the importation of agricultural products in that decade. Imports of foodstuffs grew from 700 thousand to 7 million tons. As a consequence, half a million people lost their employment in agriculture35. A total of 900,000 hectares [2,250,000 acres] of seasonal crops, or 26% of the total, were taken out of production between 1990 and 1999.36
Conclusion The FTA constitutes a deepening of the policies of “economic opening.” Worse still: whereas those policies enacted 16 years ago maintained certain levels of protection, as per the Andean System of Price [Floor-Ceiling] Bands, the FTA eliminates all protection mechanisms and reduces tariffs to zero. With the FTA Colombia is legalizing a practice prohibited under WTO rules, namely dumping. Colombia hands over to the United States exclusive control over the market of cereals and vegetable oil, thereby sacrificing national food sovereignty and violating Article 65 of the Colombian Constitution which establishes state protection of food production. In return, Colombia only gets uncertain access to the U.S. market. In that market, Colombia will have to compete with other poor countries in marginal markets
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World Bank. World Bank’s Health, Nutrition and Population data platform. http://devdata. worldbank.org/hnpstats/cg.asp Departamento Nacional de Planeación. [National Planning Ministry] PIB agropecuario (Gross Rural Product) variación porcentual [percent variation] 1995-2005.http://www.dnp.gov.co/ paginas_detalle.aspx?idp=88 [Ángel María] Caballero cuestiona negociaciones del ALCA. [FTAA negotiations questioned] El Nuevo Día, Ibagué. 2 de marzo de 2003. Estructura Económica Colombiana. Gilberto Arango. 9 ed. Bogotá: Mc Graw Hill, 2000. p. 71
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11 of tropical products. These markets are already characterized by saturation and price volatility. Finally, the acceptance of the Most Favored Nation clause is an assault upon national sovereignty and dignity.37 On the face of this onslaught, the national government launched the “Agriculture, Guaranteed Income” project which amounts to acknowledging that it was the loser in the negotiations. The government is pretending that, with minimal economic support, it can make the rural sector competitive enough to compete with U.S. agriculture; this is a smoke-and-mirrors strategy to be used demagogically in the various rural areas and as propaganda by government supporters in Colombia’s congress. “The agricultural sector is about to be massacred. The government is setting things up by political manipulation, not to stop the massacre, but to keep people from resisting, so that the masses don’t rise up against it, so that people don’t oppose the project.”38 “The FTA will bring chaos to Colombia’s countryside, the social situation will worsen, inequality in landholding will continue. Colombia is facing one of the most humiliating events in its history.”39 If approved, Colombian peasants will be unable to face unfavorable, unequal competition. Their remaining alternative will be to migrate to cities, leaving their lands at the mercy of outlaw groups which will expand cultivation of illicit crops and intensify their terrorist acts. STATEMENTS BY AGRICULTURAL TRADE ASSOCIATIONS
“Everyone was confused and upset. Some of the angriest businessmen were Jenaro Pérez, President of the Antioquia Dairy Consortium (Colanta); Henry Eder, Board Memeber of the Manuelita Sugar Enterprises, and Rafael Matera, of Camagüey Freezer Enterprises”. Portafolio, 7 febrero, 2006. “Friendship with the U.S. is no excuse to destroy the agricultural sector” Rafael Mejía, President, Colombian Association of Agricultural Producers. Portafolio, 7 febrero, 2006. “The [SPM] topic was one of the foundations at the start of the FTA negotiations. Without it the FTA is not defensible, either morally or politically” José Felix Lafaurie, President. Association of Cattle Raiser. Portafolio, 16 febrero, 2006. “We have been lied to by the government and President Uribe himself. The government is taking the agricultural sector essentially to its death,” Rafael Hernández, President, Rice Growers Association, 28 febrero, 2006. El Tiempo. “If the FTA negotiations were bad, the re-negotiations were worse, by opening the market immediately to chicken parts from the United Sates”. Jorge Enrique Bedoya, National Federation of Poultry Farmers – FENAVI. 23 julio, 2006. Caracol Radio. “We have been sacrificed for the sake of political deals with the United States” Freddy Velásquez, National Association of Hog Farmers. Cited by Jorge Robledo, 12 septiembre, 2006.
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The truth On the FTAA
Public Statement of the National Meeting of Agrarian and Rural Organizations of Colombia to the Congress of the Republic, the Colombian Government and the National and International Public Bogotá, Mach 28, 2007 Rural organizations of peasants, farmers , agriculture and cattle ranchers, cooperatives, unions, indigenous communities and Afro-Colombians, meeting in Bogota the 28 of March, 2007, express our public rejection of the policies and legal projects that the government of Alvaro Uribe Velez imposes against rural sectors and the nation in general. We reject, in particular, the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, the projects relating to the Rural Statutes and the reduction of funding to departments, municipalities and indigenous communities. For years the policies of the various neo-liberal governments have been injurious for the rural sector: importation of foods, elimination of agricultural promotion institutions, the forceful uprooting of the rural population, disarticulation of local and regional markets, abandonment of the peasant population, and the handing over of strategic sectors of the nation into the hands of multinationals. With the signing of the FTA the government of Alvaro Uribe Velez perpetuates these policies, spreading their damage onto the overwhelming majority of Colombians and, in particular, upon agriculturalists and rural communities. The FTA contains hundreds of conditions which damage national sovereignty, our fundamental rights, the economy and culture, the territoriality and social order of communities to the benefit of transnational corporations and handful of agribusinesses allied with the TNCs.
About the FTA During negotiations the government handed over to large international businesses the monopoly for the importation of the principal agricultural and cattle products vital for the national diet and traditional foods: cereals, oils, beans, fruit and vegetables. It agreed in short measure, to a death sentence for aviculture and pig farming, in addition to bringing producers of milk and beef close to ruin. In open violation of article 65 of the National Constitution (which requires the rightful protection of food production), it proposes the despoliation of rural producers and violates Colombia’s NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND FOOD SECURITY. As soon as it is enacted, the United States will be able to import, without paying tariffs and at prices lower than the cost of local production, 4,700,000 tons of agricultural and meat products.
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13 These imports will increase annually and indefinitely. On the other hand, the national producers are offered access to the U.S. market to the tune of 69,000 tons of sugar, milk products and tobacco. In the FTA priorities are defined and mechanisms established for foreign investment in public services such as water; scientific knowledge and culture are privatized via rules of intellectual property and patents, covering the production and provision of inputs, seeds, plants, genes, human and veterinarian medications. In a scandalous reinforcement of this policy, the recent reform of the Penal Code sanctions with fines and jailing, from 4 to 8 years those who, for example, grow or use seeds patented by the multinationals.
Proposed Legislation The government, in correspondence with its desire to end the production of foods, presented to Congress the Rural Statute plan, a symbol of the most reactionary agrarian law in contemporary Colombian history. With it, the government aspires to intervene by favoring by social sectors who have acquired property by way of violence, and makes possible the legalization of titles fabricated by diligent notaries, legitimizing the uprooting of working people from their lands. Among a number of things, the proposed law generates conflicts, among those having original titles allocated by the State, like those of the indigenous preserves, the Afro-Colombian collective territories and the titles given to colonists. It also impedes the resolution of historical demands for lands by peasants and indigenous people. In exchange, the law proposes to appropriate millions of hectares of vacant lands to the largest national and foreign investment corporations, orienting moreover the investment of public resources from the national budget towards agribusinesses in bio-fuels, forest logging and cattle ranching. As if sole subjects of state support, it is fundamentally dedicated to giant national and foreign investors, to the detriment of the people, the ecosystems and rural Colombian culture. The Statute, inappropriately called “rural”, establishes no concrete program for developing the production of food supplies. It offers no support for the producers who already feed the nation, and neither finances the small processing industry which can provide for the population which suffers insufficient nutrition, which represents 43% of the homes in the countryside and cities. It is evident that with these policies will not stop the destruction and other maladies that have been loosened upon the rural areas. They would force families more than ever before, to depend upon illicit crops, which will continue to be sprayed with poisonous fumigants financed by Plan Colombia. Like bait for the unwary the government promotes the project, which it has shamelessly denominated “Agriculture, Guaranteed Income”, offering loans for the “reconversion” of culti-
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The truth On the FTAA vated territories to the production tropical crops for export; promising insignificant supports to the producers who will lose out, with the obvious intention of buying off the conscience of trade association leaders and buy off political clients. Earlier, Congress passed the Forestry law and will propose again legislation pertaining to waters, with an eye towards privatization of environmental resources and the supply of drinking water and the alienation of rural community lands; furthermore rural territories will be handed over to mining companies to the detriment of community lands, of small mining operations and the environment. The model which is promoted would translate into the expulsion of millions of Colombians from their lands, particularly the most vulnerable. To implement such, the government reverts to demagoguery and relies on repression under the subterfuge of Democratic Security.
Law of Transfers and Budget And the worst of all, instead of meeting basic necessities vital for health, education, housing and agricultural technical support, the government transacts constitutional reforms in order to reduce allocations to regions, municipalities and indigenous preserves. Simultaneously, the modification of the Statute of the National Budget is promoted, as a way of strengthening the executive branch. For the dignity of the nation, we are marching on the Congress of the Republic to demand that it reject the FTA, the Rural Statute, the reduction of budget allocations and the rest of the proposed legislation which will harm national interests and the peoples and producers of the rural areas. In order to reject those measures, and in accord with the Agrarian Mandate, the Indigenous Mandate and the other programs and platforms of struggle of the various organizations signed below, we call upon the Colombian people and in particular the peasants, laborers and agricultural workers, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, and all agricultural producers, regardless of branch, to unite under the slogan of Civil Resistance and Mobilization agreed upon by the democratic sectors of Colombia. *Acia * Acin *Ademucis * Agameta * Agropemca * Anmucic *Anmucic – Boyacá, Atlántico, Sucre, Santander, Quindío, Caldas, Cundinamarca, Valle, Meta, Tolima, Huila, Nariño *Amosic * Anuc * Anuc-ur * Apemecafe *Aromacol- El Colegio, Cundinamarca *Asenco - Sucre * Asoagropal *Asotramidma – Curumaní *Asociación Agropecuaria y Minera de Colombia – Asoagromicol – Curumaní *Asociación del Distrito de Riego de Cuítima Arbolama *Asociación Agropecuaria de Palermo - Huila * Asociación Nacional de Productores de Trigo *Asociación Nacional por la Salvación Agropecuaria *Asociación para el Desarrollo Campesino – MarsellaRisaralda *Asociación de Protectores de Agua-Asoproagua *Asociación de Juntas Comunales de San José de la Fragua *Asociación Aiapac- Codazzi *Asociación Antioqueña de Ligas de Usuarios de Servicios Públicos *Asociación de Ganaderos del Municipio de Sucre- Asogan *Asociación
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15 Interdepartamental de Desplazadas y Vulnerables – Indevul *Asociación de Usuarios del Acueducto Regional de Caldas *Asociación de Familias Campesinas de Támesis – Biabuma *Asociación de Organizaciones Campesinas y Populares de Colombia – El Común *Asociación de Profesionales Independientes de Boyacá *Asoagropecuro – Curumaní *Asoproagu a– Caquetá *Asociación de Productores Indígenas y Campesinos - Asproinca *Avocar *Cabildo Verde de Mogotes *Cabildo Mayor Indígena Embera – Chamí- Quinchía *Cabildo Indígena- Huellas - Caloto * Cecoin * Censat - Agua Viva *Concejo de Desarrollo Rural - Risaralda - Caldas *Consciencia Crítica Ambiental *Convergencia Campesina, Negra e Indígena y de Colombia * Comité de Interlocución Campesino y Comunal *Comunidad Indígena – San Agustín * Coordinación Nacional de Desplazados CND *Cooperativa Comercializadora de Villanueva *Cooperativa de Algodoneros del Occidente de Antioquia * Confederación Nacional de Acción Comunal * Coordinador Nacional Agrario- C.N.A. *Corporación Compromiso *Escuela Campesina de la Provincia de Soto * FEAC - Universidad de Cundinamarca *Empresa Cooperativa del Sur del Cauca –Cosurca * Federación de Productores de Frutas y Hortalizas del Cauca *Fedetabaco – San Gil * Fenacoa * Fensuagro * Grupo Semillas * Ilsa *Indígenas de La Guajira * Movimiento Comunal y Comunitario *Migd - Cundinamarca * Organizacon Nacional Indígena de Colombia Onic * Organizaciones Campesinas de la CGT: Acc-Fanal-Asociaciones Departamentales de Usuarios Campesinos (Aduc) de Caldas, Tolima, Antioquia, Chocó, Cundinamarca y Quindío *Proceso de Comunidades Negras *Productores de Arroz del Resguardo de López Adentro * Proyecto Planeta Paz *Proyecto Nasa *Proagrario - Ong *Resguardo Indígena de Cristianía – Jardín- Antioquia * Sintraincoder *Sintraprofisan *Sinaltrainal *Sudec – San Martín de Loba * Sintrapalma * Unidad Cafetera *Unidad Panelera
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The truth On the FTAA
ORGANIZATIONS OF RECALCA Acción Permanente por la Paz; Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca, ACIN; Asociación Censat Agua Viva; Asociación Colombiana de Ingenieros Agrónomos, HACIA; Asociación de Industriales de Bogotá; Asociación de Empresarios por la Salvación Industrial; Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas indígenas y negras, ANMUCIC; Asociación Nacional por la Salvación Agropecuaria; Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, CUT; Centro de Estudios del Trabajo, CEDETRABAJO; Centro de Estudios Nueva Gaceta; Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular, CINEP; Coordinadora de Mujeres Trabajadoras Andinas, capítulo Colombia, Comuande; Confederación de Pensionados de Colombia, CPC; Confederación de Trabajadores de Colombia, CTC; Confederación General de Trabajadores, CGT; Consumidores de Colombia, COCO; Corporación Cactus; Escuela para el Desarrollo de la Democracia, ESCUDE; Federación Colombiana de Colegios de Contadores Públicos; Federación Colombiana de Colegios de Contadores Públicos; Federación Colombiana de Educadores, FECODE, Federación Colombiana de Estudiantes de Contaduría Pública; Federación Nacional de Profesores Universitarios; Fundación América Latina; Fundación Friedrich Ebert en Colombia, FESCOL; IFARMA; Red Internacional de Género y Comercio, punto Focal Colombia; INDEPAZ; Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales Alternativos, ILSA; Marcha Mundial de Mujeres; MENCOLDES; Mesa Mujer y Economía; Movimiento Comunal Comunitario; Movimiento Popular Artístico Colombiano, MOPAC; Organización Colombiana de Estudiantes, OCE; Periódico Desde Abajo; Planeta Paz; Plataforma de Derechos Humanos; Democracia y Desarrollo, capítulo Colombia; Colectivo Somos Sudacas; Sindicato de Trabajadores del Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar, SINBIENESTAR; Red de Veedurías Ciudadanas; Corporación Viva la Ciudadanía; Colectivo Libertario Banderas Negras; Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia, ONIC; Coordinadora Nacional Agraria, CNA; Convergencia Nacional Indígena, Negra y Campesina; Acción Campesina Colombiana de Juristas; Fundación de Apoyo Comunitario, FUNDAC; Unidad Cafetera; Liga de Usuarios de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios; Unión Nacional de Usuarios y Defensores de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios.
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