Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights www.owcinfo.org April 18, 2008

“The movement headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador is fomenting a coup d’etat aimed at dismantling the Mexican nation and provoking a bloody civil war.” This highly charged accusation by the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE), the equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce in the United States, was featured prominently in most of Mexico’s newspapers this morning.

The spokesperson for the CCE, joined in a press conference by high-ranking figures in the ruling right-wing National Action Party (PAN), called on PAN leader Felipe Calderón to put an immediate end to the takeover and occupation by the opposition movement of the Mexican Senate and National Assembly. Calderón was imposed as Mexico’s president by massive fraud in July 2006 against López Obrador, the man most Mexicans consider to be their “legitimate” president. “The country is slipping into anarchy,” the CCE spokesperson continued. “We call upon the president and the Security Forces to dislodge by force the Congresspersons and their gang of supporters from the premises of our National Congress.”

For 10 days now, the Mexican Senate and National Assembly in Mexico City have been totally shut down, as opposition senators and deputies from the Broad Progressive Front (FAP) — consisting of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Party of Labor (PT) and Convergencia — have occupied the podiums of both legislative houses. They placed huge banners in both buildings that read, “Clausurado,” or “Closed Down,” explaining that both legislative branches would not be allowed to renew their deliberations until a genuine national debate could be organized on the proposals submitted by Calderón on April 8 to privatize Pemex, Mexico’s national oil corporation.

López Obrador and his movement, the National Democratic Convention (CND), are calling for a Nationwide Referendum on Calderón’s five proposals to “modernize” Mexico’s oil industry — all of which they characterize as privatization measures aimed at handing over Mexico’s oil to the transnational corporations. They also insist that a five-month period of national discussion must precede this Referendum, with, among other things, a series of televised debates between López Obrador and Calderón, on the one hand, and between their respective secretaries of Energy — Claudia Sheinbaum from the “Legitimate Government of Mexico” and Georgina Kessel from the fraudulent Calderón administration, on the other.

Calderón has stated he is open to a “national debate” on his proposals, but he has insisted that the only place such a debate can take place is the Mexican Congress. He and his supporters in the PAN and the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), the two main parties who command a large majority of representatives in the Congress, have rejected categorically what they call “the attempt by López Obrador to wrest legitimacy from Mexico’s political institutions by creating an illegitimate dual power in the streets.” (Uno Más Uno, April 17)

Brigadistas and Electrical Workers Mobilize

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of activists of the Frente en Defensa del Pétroleo [Front in Defense of Mexico’s Oil resources] — also known as “adelitas” and “adelitos,” a reference to the footsoldiers of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 — have circled the two legislative buildings as a human shield to prevent the security forces from entering the buildings and squashing this “legislative strike” by the opposition members of Congress. The Brigades have been well-disciplined, blockading the Congress in rotating eight-hour shifts.

“We have put our bodies on the line,” explained one “adelita” to La Jornada newspaper. “Let them come with their guns and bayonets. We are not leaving. We have said, ‘Enough is Enough!’ … We will not allow them to privatize our oil, shatter our Constitution [a reference to overturning Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution, which stipulates that Mexico’s oil is the property of the nation — A.B.] and destroy our future and that of our children and grand-children. We have said, ‘La Patria No Se Vende, El Petroleo Se Defiende’!” [Our Nation Is Not For Sale; Our Oil Must Be Defended!] (La Jornada, April 17)

When the Senators of the PAN and PRI attempted yesterday to transfer the Senate proceedings to an alternate site in Mexico City, they were dogged by thousands upon thousands of “adelitas” and prevented from reconvening at a nearby Senate building. The PAN Senators, led by federal stormtroopers (or “gorillas,” as they are known in Mexico), made their way through the human barricade set up by the “adelitas.” But the Senators of the PRI — the party that ruled Mexico for more than 70 years — refused to cross the adelitas’ human chain, reflecting the political crisis in the summits of the PRI over a privatization measure they know is repudiated by the overwhelming majority of the people of Mexico.

The PRI, which still claims to stand on the principles of the Mexican Revolution, was compelled to say that it “wouldn’t accept any privatization of Pemex.” Emilio Gamboa Patrone, coordinator of the PRI’s parliamentary fraction, declared: “We will never allow for the establishment of contracts of shared risk with the corporations, nor the participation of private capital in the activities reserved for the state by the Constitution.” (La Jornada, March 27, 2008)

At the same time, the Electrical Workers Union (SME) took to the streets yesterday in what was to be the first of a series of mass mobilizations to demand a genuine national debate and referendum over the future of Mexico’s energy sovereignty. “We will not allow the government to privatize Pemex, and nor will we allow them to restrict the debate within the four walls of the Mexican Congress,” said Martin Esparza Flores, president of the SME, at a rally near the Senate building. “We need a full debate in the Mexican media so that the millions of people in Mexico can hear our arguments and see our figures. … We are certain that if we are able to compel the radio and TV stations to air our message, we will win the debate hands down and force them to withdraw their country-selling privatization scheme.”

At the end of the day, Senators from the PAN, the PRI, and the Partido Verde Mexicano (PVM) — the Green Party, a longstanding ally of the most right-wing forces in Mexico — issued a statement calling on Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, a member of the PRD and ally of López Obrador, to order the city police to “restore law and order, by forcing the unruly mob to disband their encirclement of the two houses of Congress.” If this is not done immediately, stated PVM spokesperson Arturo Escobar, “the Senate will have no choice but to remove Ebrard from his responsibilities as mayor of Mexico City, something that is within the Senate’s purview.”

Calderon’s Plan and López Obrador’s Response

The mounting political crisis that is rocking the institutions of the Mexican State to its very foundations is rooted in a privatization scheme of Mexico’s oil industry that has been dictated by Washington in the interest of U.S. oil corporations. For decades, U.S. corporate interests have been champing at the bit, seeking by every possible means to take back the oil resources that were nationalized by Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas in 1938.

Over the past 14 years under NAFTA, major sectors of Mexico’s petrochemical industry have been taken over by foreign oil interests. But these inroads have been deemed totally insufficient. In 2006, the Bush administration, responding to the lobby of Bush’s oil cronies, orchestrated the electoral fraud that brought Washington’s towel boy, Felipe Calderón, to the presidency — ChoicePoint voting machines and all. It was necessary to take this assault on Mexico’s oil resources to a new level, to break the political logjam that resulted from the legacy of the Mexican Revolution and its obstinate resistance to the privatization of the crown jewel of Mexico’s sovereignty.

Felipe Calderón — understanding the deep-seated refusal by the Mexican people to turn over Pemex to foreign interests — has had to wrap his privatization proposals in the mantle of nationalist rhetoric. He has repeated ad-nauseam that his five proposals have nothing to do with privatization. His propaganda machine has insisted that these measures are simply aimed at “modernizing” Mexico’s aging infrastructure in oil ducts, transportation, storage, exploration, and drilling (especially deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico). Foreign capital is needed, the story goes, to increase oil revenues for Mexico, with ownership and decision-making in the new joint ventures remaining firmly in the hands of the Mexican state.

Calderón and his PR campaign also have insisted that Pemex is broke and that it does not have the funding or technical capacity to make the company profitable and to build the refineries that Mexico needs.

Not so, counter López Obrador and his team. “In the name of greater management ‘autonomy’,” Claudia Sheinbaum explains, ” they intend to hand over the administration of the system to the oil multinational conglomerates in the form of ’service contracts’ and ‘expanded contracts.’ This so-called autonomy, Sheinbaum continues, is aimed at redirecting the profits and tax revenue from Pemex to the private sector. This would mean the loss to the Mexican State of more than 40% of its income and would lead to the immediate destruction of publicly funded education, health care, social security, transportation, environmental protection, and more.

In his speech to the Brigadistas on April 6 at the Monument to the Revolution, López Obrador explained that the recent PRI and PAN administrations have consciously decapitalized Pemex with the aim of handing over Mexico’s oil to the U.S. oil robber barons. He lambasted the corruption at the highest levels of Pemex and the State and insisted that the solution is not privatization, but a cleansing of this corruption and the recapitalization of the oil industry.

“Pemex is extremely profitable,” Lopez Obrador explained. “A barrel of Mexican oil is currently selling at US$95, while it costs only $3 to produce. … The billions of dollars in revenue can and must go to building the three refineries that Mexico needs to fully meet our energy needs and fuel the economic development of our nation — to provide millions of jobs at a living wage, so that our sons and daughters do not have to risk their lives crossing the border into the United States in search of the means to feed their families.”

López Obrador continued, “To claim the system is bankrupt and that we lack technical expertise to turn the system around is a cruel hoax. Our Mexican engineers have the know-how to build the finest infrastructure in the world. … We don’t need so-called reforms to the ’secondary laws’ governing Pemex; we need to return Pemex to the Mexican people. We need to get rid of the corrupt officials and make this bastion of our national sovereignty fully accountable to the Mexican people.”

“We are not going to be duped,” López Obrador stated. “‘Association’ with private capital is privatization. ‘Alliances’ with foreign corporations is privatization. ‘Risk Contracts’ is privatization. ‘Contracts with Third Parties,’ or ‘Multiple Service Contracts,’ or ‘Management Autonomy” … all these are privatization. Anything and everything that involves sharing the revenue of Pemex with local or foreign investors is privatization — and we will not allow it to pass.”

López Obrador went on to excoriate all the institutions of the Mexican political regime that have permitted the decapitalization of Pemex, the electoral fraud of July 2006, the destruction of Mexico’s agricultural base [through the new agricultural chapter of NAFTA that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2008, and that will lead to the liquidation of Mexico’s native corn and bean production], and the subordination of Mexico’s sovereignty to the Empire to the North. He said all these fraudulent institutions must go, to be replaced with the institutions of a “New Republic” that are based on the “values of equality, solidarity, and national sovereignty.”

And López Obrador concluded, “We will not go back to the days of the Porfiriato [a reference to the decades of dictatorship under Porfirio Diaz that preceded the Mexican Revolution of 1910–AB]. We will not take one single step back. If we allow them to privatize our oil, we will fuel chaos and violence among our people. Pemex has ensured the peace of our nation, as we have been able to use its resources to develop our country. But without this revenue, regions of our country will be pitted against each other in a fight over ever-decreasing resources. … There is no compromising here with our national sovereignty. Every single proposal by Calderón is unacceptable and unamendable.”

López Obrador’s speech was met with thunderous applause, as the Brigadistas began chanting, “Ni Un Paso Atrás! [Not One Step Backward!] and “No Tenemos Miedo! [We Are Not Afraid!]

Crisis in the PRD and New Challenges

Many Mexican political observers believe that Calderón chose this particular moment to introduce his “oil reform” measures because of the deep political crisis in the PRD, the party of which López Obrador is a leader.

Two months ago, internal elections were held in the PRD to determine the party leadership. Two wings — one led by Alejandro Encinas, an ally of López Obrador; the other led by Jesus Ortega, linked to the more conservative sectors in the PRD — have been feuding openly over central questions of Mexican politics. The Ortega wing (known as the “Chuchos”) have lambasted López Obrador for refusing to accept the outcome of the 2006 elections and for taking the struggle outside the framework of the Mexican Congress and the institutions of the State. Ortega has the full support of the PRD state governors, all of whom have recognized the legitimacy of the Calderón government and accused López Obrador of fomenting unrest with his “infantile” refusal to accept the 2006 election results.

Two months after the internal elections, the PRD leadership has yet to disclose the winner of its internal leadership election, so deep is its internal crisis. The party’s rank-and-file, basing themselves on exit polls, are convinced that the Encinas wing won the election by an overwhelming margin. But PRD Election Commission leaders have told the press, off the record, that the Ortega wing appears to have won. Insiders believe the “Chuchos” were aided by massive ballot-stuffing by PRI operatives in the PRD.

The imminent split in the PRD has fueled deep resentment and anger among the ranks of the PRD. “Not only did López Obrador lose the 2006 election because of voter fraud,” a PRD activist told La Jornada after the March 18 López Obrador rally in Mexico City, “it appears he is now going to be the victim of voter fraud within his own party. This is sickening. We did not build a new party, the PRD, to have this kind of thing happen.” (March 19, 2008)

But if Calderón was counting on a demoralized and demobilized opposition movement to introduce his “reform” packet, he had to be surprised by the immediate and massive response to his proposals — a response organized largely outside the framework of the PRD and its allies in the Broad Progressive Front (FAP). The center of the resistance has been the National Democratic Convention (CND), a genuine and autonomous grassroots movement, and the newly formed Front in Defense of Mexico’s Oil Resources, headed by Claudia Sheinbaum.

From the beginning, the CND has had an uneasy alliance with the parties in the FAP — but more and more the CND’s center of gravity has shifted away from reliance on the parliamentary fraction of the FAP toward building an independent mass movement in the streets to defend Mexico’s sovereignty and democracy.

The takeover and occupation of the Mexican Senate and National Assembly by senators and deputies of the FAP is extremely significant. But support for this action is far from unanimous within those parties. On April 7, after López Obrador swore in the 10,000 women Brigadistas at the Monument to the Revolution, PRD parliamentary fraction leader Ruth Zavaleta announced publicly that if the “adelitas” blocked the entrance to the National Assembly, she would call in the federal police to have them taken away.

The determination of the movement behind López Obrador and the huge number of Brigadistas made it politically impossible for Zavaleta to call in the police. It would have been political suicide for her to take such a drastic action.

Instead, it appears a growing wing of the FAP parliamentary fraction, including some prominent allies of López Obrador, is seeking a deal with Santiago Creel, former Minister of the Interior under Vicente Fox and current national coordinator of the PAN, to forge a “Third Way” for a national debate on “energy reform.” Creel is proposing a series of public forums over the next 50 days, but with a binding vote on the “reform proposals” to take place in the Mexican Congress.

Such a proposal has been rejected publicly by the spokespersons of the CND, but López Obrador has yet to issue a statement dissociating himself from his FAP allies on this question of the “Third Way.” This has raised deep concern among many CND activists and prompted a number of them to call on López Obrador to affirm his independence in relation to the parties of the FAP, whom they consider unreliable allies in the struggle to safeguard the interests of the Mexican people and nation.

Along these lines, the Democratic and Independent Workers Party (PTDI) — which has strongly supported the CND and the movement to defend Pemex — issued a statement calling on López Obrador and the CND coordinators to issue a call to convene a mass National Democratic Convention of 1 million people in the downtown central square of Mexico City, the Zócalo — as they did on September 16, 2006.

The PDTI statement reads, in part:

“The political situation is very grave. The PRI and PAN — with their false majority — have announced they will vote to support Calderón’s privatization proposals in the Mexican Congress, even though the PRI has expressed a number of reservations with these proposals. All the political institutions of the current regime, as López Obrador himself has stated time and again, are profoundly undemocratic and fraudulent. This includes the presidency, of course, but also the Legislature and the Courts.

“So the question becomes: Who has the legitimacy to decide such a fundamental question as the one posed by the proposed plan to privatize and liquidate Pemex?

“Only the people, truly represented by its legitimate government, can decide!

“Is it therefore not necessary to convene a new assembly of the National Democratic Convention to counterpose the legitimate will of the people to the illegitimate power of Calderón and to all the other fraudulent institutions that are ready to sell out our nation?

“The entire nation is rising up. Is it not the moment to convene 1 million representatives of the Mexican people so that they can be the ones to take the decisions of the nation into their own hands, responding to the will of the people, who have stated in one firm voice: ‘No to the privatization of Pemex! Withdraw all the privatization proposals! Defend the Mexican nation’!”?

The struggle to compel the Mexican government to hold a nationwide Referendum with a real public debate in the mainstream media is gaining widespread support. It is essentially a demand for the government to withdraw its privatization plan. But that will only come about if the millions of people across Mexico are mobilized to come to aid of the valiant Brigadistas who are confronting the federal police in Mexico City — and who will likely be met with repression as they hold the line around the government buildings.

The call to form Committees in Defense of Mexico’s oil all across Mexico and to mobilize 1 million people in Mexico City in the coming weeks is not only timely, it is a vital necessity to the deepening struggle to defend Mexico’s sovereignty.

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[Alan Benjamin is the co-coordinator of the Open World Conference Continuations Committee, based in the San Francisco Labor Council. He has traveled to Mexico repeatedly over the past two months. Most recently, he helped to coordinate a delegation of 32 U.S. unionists and activists who participated in the Second Continental Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations, held in Mexico City on April 4-6, 2008.]

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SECOND CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE- Against “Free Trade” Agreements and Privatization - For the Defense of the Sovereignty of the Peoples - For the Renationalization of All That Has Been Privatized - For the Defense of Pubic Services and Enterprises and of All Nationalized Industries on the Continent - For the Defense of Pemex, the Electrical Sector and Social Security - Against War

(Mexico City, April 4-6, 2008)

www.encuentrocontinental.org

CONCLUSIONS

On April 4-6, 2008, the Second Continental Conference took place in Mexico City with 283 delegates in attendance. During the different phases of the conference, leaders, workers and activists from 16 countries participated: Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Costa Rica, Cuba, Martinique, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

The conference took place at a moment when the nations and working people of the continent are facing an unprecedented offensive, particularly through the implementation of the “Free Trade” Agreements and the threats of war.

In the face of this offensive, the peoples have said “Enough!” This can be seen throughout the continent through strikes, demonstrations, elections, and more. The peoples have said: “The nation is not for sale; It must be defended!” - “The oil belongs to the peoples, not to the multinational corporations!” - “The gas is Bolivia’s!” - “Defend the nationalized enterprises!” - “Defend Pemex!” - “No to war! For the unity of the nation!”

For all these reasons, the peoples are saying “no” to the “Free Trade” Agreements that destroy the material bases of national sovereignty and unity, undermining all the rights of the workers and peoples.

The peoples of the continent are resisting the policies that dismantle national sovereignty and workers’ rights. This is most evident in the following examples:

• In the revolutionary process in Venezuela: We support unconditionally all the measures taken by the Venezuelan government that reclaim control over the country’s natural resources — the defense of PDVSA (oil), the renationalization of the steel and cement enterprises (particularly Cemex, the private Mexican company that controlled more than 50% of Venezuela’s market in this industry), etc. We support the struggle for the defense of the unity and sovereignty of Venezuela. The central goal of the U.S. government is to crush the revolutionary process in Venezuela to ensure its domination of the continent.

• In the unfolding processes in Bolivia and Ecuador that have won gains in the direction of national sovereignty and, for that reason, are also threatened by the forces subordinated to the U.S. government. Similarly, the sovereignty and gains of the Cuban people are also threatened. That is why the demand for an end to the U.S.-imposed embargo of Cuba is more urgent than ever!

• In the movement of resistance in defense of Pemex in Mexico promoted by the National Democratic Convention (CND), the National Front in Defense of Oil, and the Legitimate Government of Mexico headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador — which are forming action committees in all the states across Mexico in addition to a large number of brigades in defense of the oil resources.

• In the struggle of Black people in the United States against the policies of ethnic cleansing implemented by the U.S. government at all levels, using the pretext of Hurricane Katrina. This system-made devastation points to the future that the U.S. government has in store for all the peoples of the world, including its own people.

• In the struggle of the people of the United States against war, against NAFTA, and against the criminalization of immigrants, as expressed in the May 1, 2006 protests of millions of people in many of the major cities of that country.

• In the struggle in Brazil against privatization, in defense of oil, and for the renationalization of the Vale do Rio Doce corporation.

• In the workers’ movement of Peru, which has announced a general strike against the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement and against the privatizations decreed by the Alan García government, following the orders of the IMF.

Every day, resistance is growing from the North to the South of the continent.

Why Are the Peoples Mobilizing?

In the case of Mexico, the Mexican delegates responded to this question with the following information:

• The delegate of the National Union of Agricultural Workers (UNTA) explained that millions of peasants cannot cultivate their land because of the opening of the market to corn and beans from the United States.

• The same delegate added that NAFTA is the cause of the massive expulsion of Mexican peasants from their lands: In the 1960s, an estimated 29,000 people migrated each year to the United States; by 2006, this number has reached 455,000 per year.

• Other delegates reported that the Mexican people have suffered from the price hikes of basic goods, at a moment when the usurper government of Felipe Calderón aims to sell off Pemex, Mexico’s national oil corporation, to the multinational corporations — even though Pemex provides 40% of the revenues for the state budget!

• The delegates of the National Mineworkers Union of the Mexican Republic explained that the Mexican government denies the right to strike and to unionization. The teachers of Section 22 of the SNTE-CNTE (Oaxaca) explained that the counter-reform of ISSSTE, the national healthcare and social security system for all federal employees, has pushed back the retirement age of all public-sector workers and handed over the retirement funds to the multinational banks (Citigroup, BBVA, Santander, etc.) They added that this devastating counter-reform of ISSSTE marked its one-year anniversary on April 1.

The delegates of the United States explained that in the most powerful country of the world:

• Immigrants who are looking for a job to feed their families and are raising the demand of the “Right Not to Emigrate,” face “militarized borders, increased repression, maquiladoras [sweatshops], and “Free Trade” treaties that are transforming all the regions of Mexico into “free trade zones” — where Mexico’s labor rights and gains are denied to the workers and where the wages are one-tenth of what they are north of the border. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have had “guest-worker” status, with no labor rights, imposed on them in the United States.

• In New Orleans, the federal, state, and municipal governments have implemented a policy of “ethnic cleansing” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina ˆ in the words of a Reconstruction Movement activist from New Orleans — “to expel the Black majority and thus modify the relationship of forces in the city.” This resulted in “the election of a majority-white City Council for the first time in 30 years, a Council whose first act was to approve the destruction of thousands of units of public housing.” By denying the Right to Return to the people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana is being transformed into “the first state with a completely privatized education system.”

• Against the mandate given to the Democratic Party in the 2006 mid-term elections to end the Iraq war, the Democrats have continued to the fund the war. Cynthia McKinney — presidential candidate for the “Power to the People” coalition, who is promoting the effort to launch a Reconstruction Party — explained:

“Finally, after watching the Democratic Party aid and abet the Bush Administration’s crimes against humanity and crimes against the peace, I left the Democratic Party.”

The delegates of other countries of the continent gave other examples of the same phenomenon:

• The people of Ecuador, upon whom weighs “the threat of war after the aggression committed by the Colombian Army,” are “deeply worried about their drinking water, which is being privatized. Water is a vital element, but in the hands of the corporations it will only serve to increase the profits of the transnational corporations.”

• In Brazil, the workers of the public sector face the threat of the liquidation of their public services, after being subjected to the counter-reform of social security that reduced their rights. At the same time, the government continues to pay back the foreign debt at a moment when the citizens of Rio de Janeiro are experiencing a dengue epidemic because of a lack of public health services.

• The people of Haiti, occupied by military forces of the United Nations under Brazilian command, are being plunged into barbarism. The Second Continental Conference fully supports the letter to Brazilian President Ignacio “Lula” da Silva presented to the conference by Haitian delegate David Josue, which states: “President Lula da Silva, what would you say to Mr. Fredi Romelus for the terrible loss of his one-year-old son, Nelson Romelus? What was Nelson’s crime? Why was he executed by soldiers under your command?”

• The conference delegates also underscored the fact that the offensive against the peoples and workers particularly affects the youth:

• In all countries unemployment is rising and living conditions have become so precarious that no future seems to exist for youth. Young people are pushed into drug-addiction and prostitution.

• Youth are the first victims of war. In the United States, “children of the working class have less and less access to universities,” which are more and more expensive and are threatened with destruction due to budget cuts linked to the financing of the war. “Youth of color are especially targeted by military recruiters to be sent to kill their own oppressed brothers and sisters” and to be killed by them. This is the reality recalled at the conference’s opening rally by Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey died exactly four years ago in Iraq. Sister Sheehan continues to fight tirelessly to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and to withdraw all U.S. troops from that war-ravaged nation.

• In Mexico, “public education is threatened by the ‘Free Trade’ Agreement,” which is expressed through the privatization of schools, the reduction of the courses offered, the budget cuts, and the entry of the multinational corporations into this sector.

The presentations of the delegates demonstrated that workers and nations are victimized by the implementation of the “Free Trade” Agreements imposed in all forms by the U.S. government. After the failure of the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), the U.S. administration has decided to push forward with its policies “by any means necessary,” including by bilateral and regional agreements.

At a moment when the “subprime” mortgage crisis is tending to become a generalized financial and economic crisis, the U.S. government wants the peoples of the world to pay for this crisis by allowing speculators to recover billions of dollars lost in the financial markets between the summer of 2007 and February 2008.

For that reason, the U.S. government feels it must go all the way in the dismantling of the sovereignty of nations and peoples, submitting their natural resources and peoples to full-throttle pillage and ruthless exploitation.

As one delegate stated, “The ‘Free Trade’ Agreements aim to eliminate all rights and privatize all public services.” Indeed, with the “Free Trade” Agreements, the U.S. government wants to liquidate the sovereign rights of the peoples, their democratic rights, and the rights won by the workers through their organizations.

The Second Continental Conference understands that the policies of the U.S. government are responsible for the attacks on the peoples and workers of our continent, but we do not confuse or equate the U.S. government with the people of the United States. The workers and youth of the United States have the same interests as the workers and youth of the world. This was demonstrated by the numerous interventions of the U.S. delegates to this conference. U.S. working people and youth are also victims of the “Free Trade” Agreements and the policies of war promoted by the U.S. government.

In Mexico, 14 years of NAFTA have led to the destruction of the Mexican countryside and to the emigration of millions of Mexicans to the United States, leading to a reduction in rights, jobs, and wages of workers even in the United States. This has been deepened with Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) and the Merida Initiative. SPP, following on the heels of NAFTA, means the full privatization of Pemex and of the state-run electricity and water systems. It means the dismantling of the public social security and health-care systems. It means corporate-backed “counter-reforms” to the country’s national Labor Code. It also means militarization and the criminalization of all social movements in the name of “the fight against narcotraffic and terrorism.”

Through the full opening of Mexico’s grain markets — as demanded by NAFTA’s latest agreement on agricultural commodities (signed into law on January 1, 2008) — and with the proposed privatization of PEMEX, all the historic gains of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917 are under fire.

At a moment when the 70th anniversary of the expropriation of the foreign oil companies is being commemorated, and when “the country’s oil profits are about US$20 trillion, which is more than enough to build the three oil refineries that the country needs,” as Claudia Sheinbaum, national coordinator of the National Front in Defense of Oil, explained to the opening rally of the Second Continental Conference, the fraudulent Calderón government aims to open PEMEX to the U.S. and Spanish oil companies. Sheinbaum added that, “they call this strategic alliances or autonomous management, but the fundamental objective is to promote the entry of private capital, particularly foreign capital, into Mexico’s oil industry.”

Yes, the goal is the submission of all nations to the dictates of the U.S. government. This is the true function of the “Free Trade” Agreements.

In Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the countries of the African continent, in the Balkans, this policy is expressed through war. Now Bush is saber-rattling on our continent, as was seen in the violation of the sovereignty of Ecuador perpetrated by the Colombian government, during which more than 40 people were assassinated, including four Mexican students. This action was widely denounced by the peoples and workers of the continent, as was expressed in the Preparatory Meeting for the Second Continental Conference that took place in Quito, Ecuador, on March 6, and that issued a declaration which stated: “U.S. war machine: Hands off Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela! The workers and peoples want peace, not war!”

In the face of the offensive of the U.S. government and these “Free Trade” Agreements, it is urgently necessary that we forge together the unity of the workers and peoples in defense of peace, sovereignty, and our democratic conquests!

To resist, the workers and peoples need to ensure “the respect of their fundamental rights,” particularly “the right to trade union freedoms and the right to Constitutions that includes equal rights.” They also need to defend their independent organizations. (1)

The Second Continental Conference decided to forge the unity in struggle against the policies of destruction imposed on the workers and peoples of the whole continent.

We will participate in the actions on May 1 throughout the continent called by the union, social, and popular organizations on the basis of the demands put forward by the Second Continental Conference, including in the United States, where the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has called for an 8-hour work stoppage on May 1 against the war in Iraq. In addition, a mass national march for immigrants’ rights (Gran Marcha Nacional) is being organized in the United States on May 1st.

An International Struggle That Requires a United Resistance

As was explained in the opening rally of the conference, the continent of the Americas is not the only one subjected to this offensive — and we are not the only peoples looking to organize a united resistance:

– In Paris, France, on February 2-3, 2008, there took place the European Conference against the European Union, a war machine against labor rights, social security, and the existence of sovereign nations on this continent. A stand was taken against the Lisbon Treaty, which implements the European Constitution rejected in 2005 by the French and Dutch peoples.

– In Caçak, Serbia, on October 27-28, 2007, worker activists from the ex-USSR, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans met and expressed their rejection of “policies of destruction, war, and privatization.” These policies have led to the recent proclamation of the so-called “independence” of Kosovo, but the Caçak delegates vowed to fight for the free union of peoples of the region and for the “defense, reconquest, and renationalization of the privatized companies and resources.”

– In Mumbai, India, on January 19-20, 2008, an Asian Conference “For Peace, National Self-Determination, and the Independence of the Workers’ Movement in the Face of World Governance, and For the Defense of Threatened Social Property in China” took place, with activists from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China.

At the three conferences, the need was expressed to organize a world conference to discuss the ways and means to roll back the offensive against the peoples and nations and to fight for the unity of the processes of resistance on an international level.

For these reasons, the Second Continental Conference supports to the call for an Open World Conference “For Peace, Against War, For Democracy and Social Justice, Against Exploitation, and For the Independence of Organizations and National Sovereignty,” which could take place in New York City. [See Appendix No. 1.]

This initiative is being proposed jointly “by the New York City chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (NYC LCLAA), the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC), and the National Democratic Convention (CND) of Mexico.”

The first signers of this appeal, who have constituted a Conference Organizing Committee, are the following:

• Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, National Commission in Defense of Mexico’s Oil Resources / Comisión Nacional en Defensa del Petróleo (Mexico)
• Daniel Gluckstein, Coordinator, International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC)
• Eduardo Rosario, Member, Executive Committee, New York City chapter of LCLAA
• Pío López Obrador, Convención Nacional Democrática, Chiapas (Mexico)
• Eduardo Alcívar, Member, National Constituent Assembly (Ecuador)
• Nivardo Rodríguez Morales, On behalf of Section 22, SNTE-CNTE, Oaxaca (Mexico)
• Cynthia McKinney, Presidential candidate of the Power to the People coalition (United States)
• Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother and independent candidate for U.S. Congress (United States)
• Salomé Herber Aguilar, Secretary of Social Conflicts and Housing, National Union of Mineworkers of Mexico / Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros Metalúrgicos y Similares de la Republica Mexicana (SNTMMSRM)
• Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund (United States)
• Baldemar Velasquez, President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, FLOC-AFL-CIO (United States)
• Luis Vázquez Villalobos, Organizing Committee, Second Continental Conference (Mexico)
• David Josué, Mes Freres et Soeurs (Haiti)
• Marc-Antoine Poinson, Socialist Workers Party (Haiti)
• Al Rojas, Frente de Mexicanos en el Exterior (United States)
• Tiffany Burns, Camp Casey Peace Institute (United States)
• Alan Benjamin, Co-coordinator, Open World Conference Continuations Committee (United States)
• Fernando Ferro, Federal Deputy, Workers Party (Brazil)
• Markus Sokol, Member, National Executive Board, Workers Party (Brazil)
• Antonio Carlos Spis, United Federation of Oil Workers (FUP); member of National Executive Committee of Central Única de Trabajadores / CUT) (Brazil)
• Julio Turra, Member, National Executive Committee of the CUT trade union federation (Brazil)
• Ramiro Guerrero C., President, Comité de Empresa de los trabajadores de Petrocomercial (Ecuador)
• Elie Domota, General Secretary, General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe / UGTG (Guadeloupe)
• Aarón Hernández Jarillo, Member, Frente de Trabajadores de la Energía (México)
• Luis Mesina, General Secretary, Bankworkers Union (Chile)

The Second Continental Conference invites all organizations of the cities and countryside; and all union, political, and social organizations who defend national sovereignty, peace, and workers’ rights and organizations, to sign on to this declaration and to join the Organizing Committee of the Open World Conference.

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Endnote

(1) Members of the Ecuadoran delegation also raised the following demands: End the contract with Petrobras; respect the fundamental and universal rights established in the Ecuadoran Constitution, such as the right to collective bargaining, association, and labor stability; reject the proposal of the Ecuadoran Ministry of Labor concerning the proposal to divide workers and eliminate the trade union organizations; provide a solution to the pensioners of the EMELEC and PetroEcuador; defend PetroEcuador.

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