Santa Rosa El Salvadorans Oppose CAFTA

Five Sonoma County residents who hail from El Salvador sat around a table at the Peace and Justice Center to plan and organize a campaign against CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
Sergio Zepeda explained that many people are unaware of the existence of CAFTA, let alone its potential to harm all countries involved. After the first year of CAFTA, he said there is a projected loss of 90,000 jobs in El Salvador. “Thousands of people in the area will be displaced. New jobs will be created but they will not help the people.” Zepeda explained that the low wages, paid by foreign companies may force people to work as many as three jobs to earn what they could with one job that pays a living wage. In addition, workplace safety standards and other labor regulations are much weaker in the South than in the US.
“There are many people here in this country who hate immigrants, but the immigrants are only an effect,” said Zepeda. The causes are the free trade policies and the governments, which enact them against the will of the people. “This place [the US] isn’t like home. We don’t want to leave, no one does, but we have to because of the policies of governments and business.”
Zepeda stated that the governments in the South are acting in the interests of American business. “Local governments should invest in the infrastructure to create jobs and improve social conditions, not foreign corporations.” When these corporations invest in a foreign country, it is at the expense of the people. There was no public input on the terms of the treaty. Environmental and labor laws are much weaker in the southern countries giving corporations free reign to exploit resources and workers. Under free trade agreements, any government that enacts such laws to protect its own country can be sued by corporations who claim those laws lower their profit margins. These legal battles are fought in the private courts of the WTO, away from the input of the people who are directly affected.
The Santa Rosa group, formed four months ago, is a chapter of the Farabundo Marti para Liberacion Nacional (FMLN). The FMLN is the socialist opposition party to El Salvador’s conservative, pro-business ruling party National Republican Alliance (ARENA). For over 25 years there have been FMLN groups in cities around the US. With support from the San Francisco chapter and the national Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), the new chapter immediately began working on a campaign to raise awareness of the CAFTA treaty. If passed, it will be a stepping stone for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Luis Rodriguez of the Santa Rosa group said “we are forming coalitions with educators, religious groups, unions and organizations such as Global Exchange and CISPES. We are against CAFTA because of what it will do to Central America. The big corporations will travel to El Salvador and set up factories with no labor or environmental standards.”
They want their message to reach the media, schools, churches, El Salvadorans and the whole community. Free trade is not free. There are social, environmental and human costs too great to simply be measured with dollars and cents. If CAFTA is passed, it will allow for the privatization, by foreign companies, of goods and services such as fuel, water and even pension funds. Americo Araujo, Educational Director of the FMLN in El Salvador spoke at the Peace and Justice Center in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23. “One of our main worries is that our national resources will be commodified by corporations. The countries should control their own resources.”
The FMLN has received a great deal of support for their cause against CAFTA. Labor unions and educators have spoken out in favor of their objectives. Organizations such as United for a Fair Economy and Americans for Fair Trade are organizing campaigns against CAFTA. A poll released in early March by Americans for Fair Trade showed that 51% of Americans oppose CAFTA, while only 32% support it. Those opposed cut across partisan divides. For more on this poll see http://www.americansforfairtrade.org.
There are however significant roadblocks ahead. Zepeda spoke of a protest last year in San Francisco at the El Salvador consulate. A consulate official threatened three women who organized the protest that immigration officials will be notified and that they will be deported and face legal consequences once they are brought back to El Salvador. “This is not the type of attitude that our own brothers and sisters should have. The El Salvadoran consulate should be there for its people.”
Julio Soto of the Santa Rosa group said “in El Salvador the FMLN is the number one political force in El Salvador. It has the most registered voters among the people and has the most representatives of any of the five parties in Congress.” However when the congress voted to ratify the CAFTA treaty this strength was not enough. The other four parties voted as a bloc in favor of the treaty, outnumbering the FMLN.
So far Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have ratified the treaty, which awaits approval here in the US and from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. All six Central American countries signed the agreement last May pending congressional ratification.
A forum to discuss these issues is being planned for April 2 at Sonoma State University.
A Global Week of Action on trade is planned for April 10-16, with events in the US focused on stopping CAFTA in Congress. Visit http://www.april2005.org for more info.
For more information on El Salvador visit http://www.cispes.org and free trade policies, http://www.faireconomy.org.